1259309https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/3/6/ANocchieriF170202.1.mp3b83e3fdf3e05eaa55090f4da0746ef37Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceNocchieri, FrancoFranco NocchieriF NocchieriPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDescriptionAn account of the resourceOne oral history interview with Franco Nocchieri, who recollects his wartime experiences in Pavia and Voghera.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.DateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2017-02-02IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextNocchieri, F Transcribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentFA: Sono Andi Filippo e sto per intervistare Franco Nocchieri. Siamo a Gropello Cairoli in provincia di Pavia, è il 2 febbraio 2017. Ringraziamo il signor Nocchieri per aver permesso questa intervista. E’ inoltre presente all’intervista Carlo Intropido, amico dell’intervistato. La sua intervista registrata diventerà parte dell’archivio digitale dell’International Bomber Command Centre, gestito dall’università di Lincoln e finanziato dall’Heritage Lottery Fund. L’università s’impegna a preservarla e tutelarla secondo i termini stabiliti nel partnership agreement con l’International Bomber Command Centre. Signor Nocchieri, vuole raccontarci la sua esperienza durante il periodo, diciamo della Seconda Guerra Mondiale?
GN: Sì, sì, Allora, esperienza della guerra, vediamo un po’. Posso cominciare da Casteggio. A Casteggio c’è una zona che si chiama il Pistornile e là c’è, c’era, penso che ci sia ancora, un istituto o un orfanotrofio, giusto? Quando c’era la guerra io sono stato lì, da ragazzino, proprio, no. Il problema, il problema qui è, era la fame, lì si soffriva proprio la fame era fame, perché sia a mezzogiorno come la sera, patate in brodo. Una scodellina di alluminio, perché adesso non è di alluminio, no, tant’è che l’alluminio veniva su con roba bollente, no. Mezzogiorno, sera, patate, e noi altri ragazzini, era talmente la fame che scavalcavamo il muro eccetera eccetera e andavamo a rubare il fondo del, il crostone, così in dialetto, della verza, non il crostone dentro la verza ma quello proprio, per far la fame, per eh. E sì, poi qui, siccome poi, sì, era ormai iniziata la guerra no, c’erano ancora i materassi con dentro, come si chiama quel coso lì, del, del, le pannocchie, come si chiamava quelle cose lì? La, la.
CI: Il granturco.
FN: Del granoturco, la pannocchia. Allora i materassi erano fatti con quello, ecco.
CI: Ah.
FN: Lo sai, io non lo so, penso, cioè eh. Comunque. E poi in questo istituto c’era il problema della notte per le cimici. C’erano tante di quelle cimici che ogni tanto cercavano di pulire un dormitorio di cento ragazzini. Che, ogni tanto, cercavano di pulire e col martello picchiavano sui letti e volavano giù tutta una striscia di cimici [laughs] e veniva poi pulito con lo zolfo. Mettevano lo zolfo in mezzo a questo camerone, lo bruciavano e, e poi ritornavano, ecco questa era la vita di allora. Questo in grosso modo, no. Casteggio. Perché, e no, tu non puoi parlare perché se parlate così, mi fa le domande lui forse io vado più avanti no, perché sono stato lì, perché ero stato preso, adottato da una persona, che era un po’ matto, allora non si guardava tanto, adesso per adottare un bambino, per dire, c’è una burocrazia che ti, taccate al tram, beh sai una volta andavi al nido qui a Pavia e o bene o male prendevi un bambino e te lo portavi a casa. E io sono finito così uno che aveva poi, eh, che aveva l’osteria che poi racconto man mano vado avanti no, ecco. Ed ero andato a finire quel, quello lì di quell’osteria a Reggio, come lo chiamavano. Siccome era un donnaiolo, aveva l’osteria no e per liberarsi di me mi metteva negli istituti. Dopo mi veniva a prendere a secondo i suoi giri così. Beh, questo era la’, poi c’è, andiamo a Voghera, Voghera, qui incomincia sempre in un orfanotrofio cui ero e qui la scuola, una volta facevano, venivano promossi quelli che agli insegnanti davano il salame e invece io a Voghera mi avevano promosso in base ai bombardamenti, no. Cioè, ero in un istituto, proprio in fondo di Voghera, era una scuola professionale che era davanti alla stazione, giusto? Voghera. Non mi ricordo più come si chiama quella lì, niente. Eh beh, andavo in quella scuola. Però di scuola ne ho fatta pochissima perché come partivamo dall’istituto, eravamo quattro cinque ragazzi, beh, quando andavamo in istituto, quando eravamo a metà strada suonava l’allarme. E noi eravamo contenti, perché invece di, invece di andare a scuola andavamo in giro per la strada a giocare, ma però, quando suonava l’allarme, a scuola non si entrava. Quindi quasi tutti i giorni era così, di conseguenza, un giorno di scuola, un giorno sotto i bombardamenti. Perchè lì bombardavano per ore, non hanno mai preso la scuola, ma gli aerei hanno incominciato a rompere le scatole. E invitavano di andare nei rifugi ma io come ragazzino, noi ragazzini ci guardavamo bene dall’andare nei rifugi. Quando arrivavano gli aerei così, per noi era tutto un, eravamo quasi contenti perché vedevamo questi aerei [makes a noise] e che, questo Voghera. Naturalmente il problema della fame, a Voghera io non l’avevo perché nell’istituto bene o male si mangiava. Poi avevo una tessera del pane falsa, ma o bene o male con la tessera del pane, ma insomma, con il mangiare o bene o male ce la cavavamo, tempo di guerra. E poi, e poi dove incomincio, boh, dove, dove, ecco, allora. Io abitavo nel paese Campospinoso Albaredo, sai dov’è? Campospinoso Albaredo è stato proprio la mia vita fino a quando è finita la guerra, no. Dunque, di Campospinoso Albaredo posso dire per esempio quando arrivavano i tedeschi, che arrivavano con cannoni, mitragliatrici, su carri trainati da cavalli, ma tanto belli e grossi, e passavano e noi ragazzi tutti contenti perché vedevamo tutte ste cose qua. Poi, ah, nel paese, lì a Campospinoso Albaredo la fame non c’era proprio come paese perché le uova o bene o male c’erano. Poi c’era un macellaio che uccideva tutte le settimane la sua mucca poi c’era chi uccideva il maiale, l’unico problema sì a volte mancava la carne, lo zucchero però si salvava coi gatti, lì i gatti ne giravano ben pochi perché mi ricordo io che mangiavamo i gatti come si mangiava un coniglio in tempo di guerra. In tempo di guerra era un po’ spinoso beh! E i tedeschi non hanno mai mai mai mai disturbato per la verità eh, passavano poi avevano fatto una specie di accampamento ma lasciavano vivere. [pauses] Dunque più che i tedeschi davano fastidio i repubblicani, i fascisti, quello lì sì, i repubblicani, durante, io parlo perché ero dentro, in un’osteria no, qui facevano da mangiare eccetera eccetera, lì quando era mezzogiorno mi pare sì, c’era il giornale radio che parlava il Duce e bisognava alzarsi in piedi. Se uno non si alzava in piedi intanto che c’era il telegiornale erano guai seri. Potevi essere prelevato dai fascisti, prelevato e andavi a finire a Villa Triste Broni e lì, beh, lo sai, potevi sparire completamente, no? quello lì. Dunque, ah, sì. I tedeschi, i tedeschi, eh dunque, i tedeschi, c’era l’osteria, l’unica volta che hanno dato fastidio è che sono venuti lì a cena una sera, erano una qundicina o più, hann cenato, tutti armati eh! Han cenato lì eccetera, poi hanno incominciato a bere, si sono scaldati un po’, eh me lo ricordo proprio, ero un ragazzino insomma no, ecco, e a un bel momento si sono levati proprio tutti tutti proprio nudi come dio li ha creati, tutti eh, e hanno cominciato a cantare e bere, cantare e bere, così sono andati avanti per un po’, poi sono scesi in una, c’era una cantina grossa sotto nella osteria, sono scesi in quella cantina lì e hanno aperto tutti i rubinetti delle botti, io ero terrorizzato perché poi dopo il Risù cher era quello che mi aveva preso in adozione era andato a dormire e m’ha lasciato da solo. Io ero terrorizzato, non tanto per i tedeschi ma ero terrorizzato da questo Risù perché poi alla mattina le botte erano tutte mie, no? Comunque hanno fatto un disastro, se ne sono presi e sono andati. L’unica cosa, no, no, no, loro non hanno pagato, no no, hanno mangiato e hanno bevuto e tutto, continuavano a ballare per l’osteria, lì così nudi nudi, poi sono andati alcuni nudi hanno preso il loro fucile e se ne sono andati e buonanotte suonatori. Che avevano un accampamento lì. Però nel paese poi era arrivato il terrore, c’è stato un momento che era arrivato il terrore dei mongoli. Perché si diceva che erano arrivati i mongoli che prendevano le donne, via eccetera. E il paese c’è stato una volta che era stato terrorizzato per questo, che c’erano, che erano poi, erano arrivati alla frazione lì attorno, non mi ricordo più le frazioni, per andare a San Cipriano giù di lì, c’erano delle cascine e questi mongoli, che erano arrivati insieme ai tedeschi, li chiamavano mongoli, poi io non so se erano mongoli, quel che erano. Andiamo avanti. Il pericolo soprattutto in questa osteria era Radio Londra perché c’era il Risù così che non era un fascista, no, e lui riceveva, tramite Radio Londra, e poi trasmetteva ai partigiani, tutto di nascosto. Io ero lì e di notte lui accendeva Radio Londra e l’ascoltava, io ascoltavo, ma eh, però era, di quello io avevo paura, seppure come bambino in sostanza, capivo e avevo paura perché se ti prendevano mentre ascoltavi Radio Londra ti fucilavano sul posto lì, non c’era via di scampo. Dunque, poi andiamo avanti. I tedeschi quando poi c’è stata quasi il fine della guerra, i tedeschi si ritiravano no e come erano andati giù tornavano indietro coi carri coi cannoni e allora c’era un ordine quasi tacito di non disturbare e di lasciarli andare, a lasciare passare perché poi hanno cominciato i partigiani e dei partigiani avevamo paura che disturbassero queste colonne, no, allora anche quelli i tedeschi avrebbero reagito e allora come tacito passavano zitto lì eccetera. Mentre invece poi qui al Ponte della Becca tre o quattro cinque partigiani, quello sono testimone, hanno arrestato un cento o più di tedeschi perché si sono messi d’accordo mentre i tedeschi si erano raggruppati lì, prima del Ponte della Becca, a Campospinoso andando giù verso Pavia, Tornello, è il paese, Tornello, subito dopo Tornello si sono piazzati i tedeschi e quattro cinque partigiani hanno fatto del fracasso, cioè quattro cinque, uno qui, uno là, uno là, uno sparava, l’altro dava ordini, l’altro così, e invece erano solo quattro, cinque. I tedeschi si sono spaventati e si sono arresi quattro, cinque uomini, in sostanza, no. Andiamo avanti. Oh, poi arriva, ah beh sì, quando ero ragazzino c’era il Balilla [laughs] c’era il Balilla che il Risù, sempre quello che mi adottava, non ne voleva sapere, di fatti io sono stato uno dei fortunati che non ha messo su perché era obbligatorio mettere su la divisa con tutte ste’ cose, i ragazzini ci tenevano, non perché erano fascisti ma da ragazzini avere una divisa così, poi, invece io sono stato esonerato però io ero, c’era la sede dei fascisti era proprio a fianco della osteria dove, che l’osteria era responsabile di quel locale, un grande salone, che poi, finito la guerra è servito come balera insomma, no, e lì c’era una biblioteca con diversi fucili e la biblioteca io prendevo i libri, mi piaceva leggere, no, libri del Salgari allora eh, e poi i fucili, mi divertivo con i fucili, li prendevo, andavo fuori nell’orto, sparare così, racconto cose così, siccome hai detto di raccontare e io racconto quel che mi viene in mente, no, poi comincia la Radio Londra l’ho detto no? . Ecco, per cominciare la, i bombardamenti, ecco, qui sì, dunque. Bombardamenti io mi ricordo che incominciavano a arrivare i caccia quattro cinque caccia, facevano un bordello di quei bordelli, ma come quando passano quelli aerei supersonici, lì, i Tornado, ecco, era quel rumore lì, ne arrivavano quattro cinque insieme, tutti [unclear] e arrivavano all’improvviso no e giravano sempre intorno a il Ponte della Becca, prendevano verso Pavia ah, eh non mi ricordo più, beh, c’era un posto che era una polveriera, una polveriera grossa, adesso sono tutte case, non so se sai dov’è, allora, passi il Ponte della Becca, vai avanti, poi c’è la strada, beh insomma è un punto che c’è una grande curva che poi sono ritrovati arrivi a Pavia il [unclear], una volta era Darsu, una grande curva, la strada che va giù, una grande curva, orca, non mi ricordo più i nomi, prendi la cartina e vedi. Beh, adesso son tutti villette, case, lì c’era la polveriera, e questi caccia giravano intorno al Ponte della Becca e a quella polveriera lì perché lì i tedeschi avevano messo giù la contraerea e la contraerea, quando arrivavano i caccia, sparava ma poi un bel momento i caccia lo facevano tacere [laughs] mi sono spiegato, se no, sì, piombavano e bombardavano anche, no. Per esempio, il Ponte della Becca l’hanno bombardato un centinaio di volte, l’hanno mai buttato giù, lo foravano, l’hanno buttato giù i caccia l’ultimo giorno di guerra. E allora sono andati giù, hann buttato giù i piloni di là, un pilone e una volta sul Ponte della Becca io giravo con la bicicletta e avevo un’anguria di dietro. Venivo verso Broni e l’hann bombardato io c’ero sopra, l’hann bucato però non mi sono fatto niente. Ho portato a casa un anguria intera [laughs]. Ponte della Becca. Arrivano i caccia. Quando i caccia erano riusciti a fare tacere l’artiglieria, allora arrivavano i bombardieri. Arrivavano parecchi, no, quattro cinque qui, quattro cinque là, avevano un rumore poi anche strano, una cosa e lì lanciavano giù le bombe sul Ponte della Becca, sul, su quella polveriera lì e sul Ponte del Ticino e noi ragazzi dei genitori non ce ne siamo neanche accorti dalle case perché i caccia mitragliavano eh, non scherzavano mica, facevano di quelle mitragliate e noi invece fuori a guardare perché era, ci piaceva vedere, no. Erano tremendi quei, quelli lì, quei caccia lì erano americani, non so qual’è, però erano anche cattivi perché per esempio correvano dietro a chi andava in bicicletta. Se vedevano una bicicletta sulla strada, quella la facevano fuori. C’era uno lì che era un sordomuto che andava in giro con un carretto con i buoi, carro con i buoi no, ma lui non sentiva, andava tranquillo [laughs]. L’hanno fatto fuori, proprio. Erano tremendi eh! Sparavano, andavano di quà, li sentivi e vedevi proprio le mitragliate che se vedevano sulla strada era verso sempre le quattro, tre e mezza, le quattro, se vedevano qualcuno sulla strada, quello aveva finito di vivere. I caccia, i bombardieri no, i bombardieri buttavano giù le loro bombe poi le vedevi poi eh, poi se ne andavano e via. Tutti i giorni, più o meno tutti i giorni, ma per un bel po’ eh. La polveriera l’hann fatta saltare parecchie volte che poi da Campospinoso Albaredo si vedevano proprio le fiamme, che venivano su, le botte via eccetera no. Eh, sempre in fatto di bombardamenti, il Pippo, famoso Pippo, no, che, quello proprio l’ho vissuto in pieno io, il famoso Pippo, no, che arrivava lì, lì le luci, se vedevano un lumino era, era, [laughs], e il Pippo arrivava alla sera sempre a un certo orario e buttava giù, questo lo posso testimoniare bene, buttava giù degli oggetti come delle navi, ne avevo una io, navi in miniatura, ma belle eh, io ne avevo una, disinnescata me l’avevano, erano proprio anche fatte bene, oppure aeroplanini oppure penne stilografiche e naturalmente Pippo le buttava giù, no, oltre che prendere le luci, se vedeva una luce, un lucino, appena appena, si accendeva un fiammifero, quello lì lo vedeva, era tremendo e buttava giù sti oggetti e noi naturalmente da ragazzini incoscienti andavamo a raccoglierli. Poi siamo stati avvisati che. Comunque c’è stato, questo lo racconto perché mi è sempre poi rimasto anche in mente. C’è stato un ragazzino della mia età no, eravamo sempre in gruppo, no, e ha raccolto un bordello di queste cose qui. Non sapevamo ancora che avevano questo effetto e ha raccolto e si è messo nella testa di andare a pescare. Buttandole dentro secondo noi, no, buttandole scoppiavano. E difatti siamo andati in riva al Po e io non so qui e lì sempre ci siamo sparsi per venire ed il pesce così così, lui è rimasto da solo e buttava dentro queste cose qui. E poi un bel momento una è scoppiata, l’ha fatto scoppiare queste, l’han raccolto su col cucchiaio quel ragazzino lì. E’ scoppiato anche lui, tutto un. Bene. Disgrazia vuole che fanno il funerale a questo ragazzo, tutto una fila, il paese Campospinoso aveva, c’era una strada dritta che andava a Baselica, un paesino lì, una frazione, un paesino, allora era una frazione, dove c’era il cimitero. Su quella strada lì vuoi mica dire che arriva, che arrivi i caccia proprio mentre c’è il funerale un fuggi fuggi generale nei fossi hanno mitragliato la cassa perché poi non c’erano i carri, la macchina, quando facevano un funerale portavano tutto a spalla no, e quello che avevano, portavano in spalla sto ragazzino che poi c’era dentro della carne tutta maciullata l’hann messo giù, preso in mezzo alla strada, son scappati nei fossi, hanno mitragliato anche la cassa, l’hann forata in un modo, una mitragliata di quelle lì, no, quando sono andati via poi hanno continuato il funerale con tutta sta cassa rotta. Mah, niente. Ecco questa, la storia, questa era del Pippo. Dunque, ecco, quindi, maciullato durante il funerale. Ponte Becca, dunque, poi io non so cosa devo raccontare ancora, fame no, della Becca. Ah sì, io, per mangiare, io come ragazzino sempre su ordine di quel pazzo, io lo chiamo pazzo, mi mandava a prendere il formaggio ad Albuzzano. Albuzzano c’era uno che aveva, allevava maiali, aveva una specie, faceva del formaggio, il burro, e io, ecco da Campospinoso andavo in bicicletta ad Albuzzano. Però io ero sempre terrorizzato perché alla fine del Ponte della Becca c’erano sempre lì i tedeschi che fermavano tutti, chi era in bicicletta magari gliela portavano via e io passavo lì col zaino e [pauses] non mi hanno mai fe rmato né niente e che quando tornavo col zaino dietro, con il formaggio, specie di formaggio, il formaggio, il burro eccetera, quelle cose lì, avevo il terrore che mi fermassero, non tanto il terrore dei tedeschi quanto per il Risù, quello lì era il motivo che poi prendevo un bordello di botte perché avevo avevo preso tante, se la prendeva con me mica coi tedeschi quello lì, ecco. Non mi hanno mai fermato, sono sempre passato avanti e indietro, quasi tutte le settimane con la mia scorta di formaggio, me la sono cavata così. Andiamo avanti. Ecco, poi allora qui siamo già [pauses] per tenere, c’era andavo a Stradella con la bicicletta a prendere il ghiaccio perché allora per tenere fresca la roba c’erano dei piccoli frigoriferi, scatoloni, mettevi dentro il ghiaccio e sempre con il pericolo dei caccia eh, perché, però me la sono sempre cavata fuori. Poi, vediamo un pò, andiamo avanti, eh!, E poi comincia la, i partigiani. Dunque, nei partigiani, è successo che, era tutto su lì, Cigognola, sulle zone, , sulle colline di Broni, no, Cigognola, tutti quei posti lì, partigiani del paese, ero andato su a fare il partigiano, no, però l’inverno [laughs] faceva freddo e sulle colline non vivevo e allora sono ritornato al paese, c’era un segretario che si chiamava podestà, podestà, era una brava persona e invece di farli, arrestare è andato d’accordo con i tedeschi in modo che, hanno, c’era, hanno organizzato la Todt, si chiamava la Todt, per fare le trincee sull’argine del Po, che era divertimento per noi ragazzi perché ci andavamo dentro poi a giocare, no, e hann fatto la Todt tutti sti giovani sono andati lì se la sono cavata fuori, però poi sono saltati fuori i fascisti, quelli sono diventati pericolosi più, ma di un bel po’ più dei tedeschi che poi era venuto un po’ anche l’odio, sai com’è, no. C’è stato un giorno che io ero a Broni e tornavo verso il paese. Quando sono arrivato davanti al cimitero di Broni, quattro cinque partigiani, no, fascisti, fascisti, quattro cinque fascisti mi, m’hann fermato, ero ragazzino, mi hanno fermato e mi hanno detto: ’Vieni, vieni qui perché tu sarai testimonio di quello che facciamo’. E lì c’era la ferrovia, sotto lì c’era la ferrovia, c’erano, cosa sarà stato, una quindicina di giovanotti, vero, e quattro e quattr’otto li hanno uccisi tutti e io ho visto, proprio visto, no, che coi mitra, lo Sten, avevano lo Sten loro, una specie di mitra che era lo Sten, tutto vuoto così, li hann fucilati e ‘adesso tu vai in paese e avvisi che noi abbiamo fatto questo’ e io sono andato in paese e ho detto: ’guarda, i hanno fatto questo e questo’. E c’erano dentro dei giovanotti del paese di Campospinoso Albaredo quello, che quello mi è rimasto impresso anche quello. Dunque, poi, e poi basta [pauses] e adesso io più o meno io ho raccontato quello che mi è venuto in mente poi non lo so, adesso sta a voi farmi le domande.
FA: Come, vuole dirci come si chiamava quello che lei chiama Risù, di nome?
FN: Ah, beh è morto, sì, Bruschi Alessandro. Quello lì, sì, era tremendo quello lì, è stato proprio il mio carnefice sotto un certo aspetto, no, poi dopo io un bel momento quando sono arrivato a quindici anni non ce l’ho più fatta.
CI: Fiorentini non l’hai mai visto?
FN: Fiorentini?
CI: Fiorentini, la belva, quello che comandava?
FN: Ah, sì, sì, ecco, questo potevo, questo era di Varzi, quello lì, o no? Bravo, quello l’ho visto. Cioè l’hanno fatto passare per il paese di Broni anche dentro una gabbia con un carro tirato dai buoi fino a Pavia e lui era dentro e naturalmente quando passava per il paese chi con l’ombrello, chi sputava, chi, quello l’ho visto sì. Fiorentini deve essere stato. Sì, sì, sì, sì. Poi dopo tutto questo, questo Risù, quando sono arrivato a quindici anni, poi non ce l’ho più fatta perché lui, lui picchiava sempre, no, e allora mi sono ribellato e sono scappato, via. Lui ha chiamato i carabinieri, carabinieri sono venuti da me, ma io detto: ’quello non è mio padre, se mi portate indietro poi io scappo ancora’. E i carabinieri allora, si sono fatti vedere una volta, non mi hanno mica detto più niente. Poi dopo io ho fatto tutta un’altra vita che poi sono entrato nell’Artigianelli, ma la guerra era finita oramai. Io gli Artigianelli li ho fatti, sì proprio alla fine della guerra. Perchè dopo io sono andato, ho trovato tutti bei genitori lì, poi è stata lunga la faccenda, no, tutto lì.
FA: E quando bombardavano il Ponte della Becca, la polveriera, era di giorno quindi?
FN: Sempre di giorno, i caccia e i bombardieri, sempre di giorno, sempre nel pomeriggio, più o meno dalle tre e mezza alle quattro, praticamente tutti i giorni quelli arrivavano, prima i caccia che facevano un bordello che durava anche una bella mezz’ora e più, che andavano e poi tornavano, andavano [makes a droning noise] facevano poi non li sentivi più, poi tornavano e facevano diversi giri. Poi veniva un silenzio mortale perché poi dopo bisognava raccogliere i cocci, per dire, no, per vedere i disastri che facevano, no, e poi toccavano, e allora poi arrivavano i bombardieri che li sentivi proprio da lontano, facevano anche rumore [makes a droning noise] impressionava anche se, tra l’altro, no, e bombardavano quasi sempre sempre sempre. Come arrivavano i bombardieri dopo bombardavano. La contraerea veniva messa a tacere, vero, e allora i bombardieri arrivavano tranquilli, anche il Pippo, la contraerea non riusciva mai a fare niente perché puntavano quei famosi fari, no, un po’ ma non lo buscavano mai perché poi tra l’altro Pippo veniva, girava sopra a bassa quota. Si credeva sempre che era in alto, no, ma invece era sempre a bassissima quota Pippo anzi sì, se era un giorno o una notte con la luna così rischiavi di vederlo, se era buio buio non lo vedevi però se era lo vedevi proprio, sempre a bassa quota è stato Pippo. La gente ha sempre creduto che era in alto, chissà dove, ecco perché la contraerea non è mai riuscito a prendere quegli aeroplani lì che loro con i fari andavano in alto ma lui era in basso. Non so più cosa dire.
FA: E’ mai riuscito a vederlo lei?
FN: Sì, sì. Ah io, poi tra l’altro ero curioso, ero tremendo, ero un po’ il capogruppo di sti giovanotti, quei ragazzotti lì, no, e anche quando arrivava Pippo io scappavo fuori dall’osteria così e di notte per vedere eccetera, non stavo fermo un minuto, sono riuscito a vederlo sì, parecchie volte. Sempre di sfuggita eh. [unclear] Dava un senso che era sempre lì invece era dappertutto. Correvi da una parte lo sentivi di là, correvi dall’altra lo sentivi, era sempre, magari, magari erano anche in due o tre, di quei aerei, però dava il senso sempre di uno, il Pippo, così chiamato, così famoso, per noi ragazzi era una, era quasi una, ma ci piaceva anche per dire, non ci rendevamo conto del pericolo, per quello che.
FA: Non avevate paura?
FN: No non, io non ho mai avuto paura, no no no. Io l’unica cosa che avevo paura era Radio Londra, Radio Londra.
CI: Posso parlare?
FN: Parla!
CI: Tant’è vero che Pippo avevamo pensato che a un certo momento che non era uno, erano in tanti.
FN: Sì eh.
CI: Si trovano dappertutto. Lui lo conoscevano tutti, lo vedevano tutti in tutti i posti, sempre lo stesso orario.
FN: Sì, sì, erano tanti.
CI: A un certo momento, ma sono in tanti, non può essere solo uno.
FN: Per noi era.
CI: E’ qui, è là, era, è dappertutto.
FN: Cioè per noi, peri noi tutti, anche la gente così, era uno, difatti, Pippo era uno. Però chissà quanti erano in giro perché il rumore era sempre quello, in qualsiasi angolo dove andavi, sentivi sempre quel rumore lì, quindi erano in tanti. Però era uno. Come dire [unclear], loro facevano il loro dovere, no. Gli adulti avevano paura, ma noi ragazzi no, neanche dei caccia così, noi non avevamo paura. Per noi era un soprappiù, era vorrei quasi dire un divertimento, un divertimento perché era anche un po’ una novità vedere sti bolidi, quegli apparecchi, il baccano, poi le mitragliate, perché vedi, ci sono state parecchie volte che vedevi proprio le pallottole che viaggiavano davanti a te perché quelli lì. E c’era la lomba, ecco qui, lo sfollamento, Milano, i Milanesi che si scaricavano proprio a Broni, tutti quei posti lì, no. C’era la Lombarda, che era la società di corriere, era così famosa, le corriere che andavano a Carbonella doppie col mantice in mezzo, quelle sempre puntuali alle sei, non sono mai state bombardate né mitragliate, si capisce che forse c’era una specie di accordo perché partivano da Milano, venivano a Pavia e se, erano sempre un quattro cinque corriere, neh, doppie, alle sei Campospinoso Albaredo alle sei passavano, si fermavano all’osteria perché si fermavano a bere eccetera eccetera, no, cariche anche fin sopra, andavano a Carbonella ma quelle cariche di persone, uomini, donne, di tutti i colori, arrivavano e andavano verso Broni, Stradella, così, la Lombarda si chiamava, sai perché quello me lo ricordo! Però non sono mai stati mitragliati. Mitragliavano uno in bicicletta, per dire, mentre quelli lì non li hanno mai, mai, mai toccati. Si capisce che, come ho detto, o era un accordo o sapevano che erano sfollati perché gli aerei li vedevano quelli lì eh perché erano grossi così quelle corriere, non so se c’è ancora quella società lì a Milano la Lombarda, non lo so. Però era quella insomma. Fate domande voialtri vi rispondo.
FA: Invece quando era a Voghera che era più piccolo, andavano sulla stazione?
FN: Solo sulla stazione.
FA: Solo lì.
FN: I caccia. Solo sulla stazione, almeno io, per me era quello. Ma però mica sempre bombardavano. Passavano tutti i giorni praticamente perché noi partivamo lì da quell’istituto lì, sì, traversavamo, perché era proprio l’inizio dove c’era, non so se il prato con le carceri, le carceri, davanti c’era quell’orfanotrofio lì, traversavamo tutto Voghera, e suonava, quando eravamo a metà Voghera, a metà strada, suonava l’allarme, che noi l’aspettavamo, cioè noi ragazzini andavamo a scuola, speriamo che suona l’allarme, speriamo che suona, la scuola, suonava l’allarme e loro, sai, tutta la gente scappava nei rifugi. , Noi invece scappavamo, quel fiume, no il fiume, fiumiciattolo, era cioè la Staffora, quando era in piena era tremendo, la Staffora c’era, c’era, c’è ancora, no, scappavamo lì, giocavamo lì, a tirare sassi. E lì bombardavano o se non altro passavano per spaventare più che altro. Naturalmente le scuole venivano sospese e noi siamo sempre stati promossi lo stesso. C’era la maestra di italiano che era una sfegatata, una fascista, beh stavo dicendo, una [unclear], una fascista ma era brava come e nell’esame finale, per essere promosso, mi ha chiamato: ‘Nocchieri!’. Bisognava alzarsi in piedi sull’attenti perché allora che eran tutti , e ‘chi sei tu?’, eh beh non so neanche come mi e’ venuto in mente: ‘sono un italiano e amo la mia patria’, seduto, promosso. Io sono stato promosso in italiano con quella frase lì [laughs]. Per dire no, e ora c’era un maestro, un insegnante, era un prete, lo chiamavamo Bà. Bà, l’era cattivo, aveva sempra una verga in mano. Bà se non sapeva, non rispondeva, ti chiamava davanti a lui, con la verga, ti faceva mettere le mani cos’ì, no, e poi ti picchiava il Bà. Se per disgrazia tu facevi così ne prendevi dieci volte il doppio. Diventava cattivo, picchiava, però ai ragazzi, c’erano dei ragazzi che venivano dalla campagna, no, e li mandava fuori dalla scuola scavalcando un muro a prendere, farsi dare una gallina, o le uova, e quelli erano fortunati perché quelli che avevano la cascina, che avevano le galline, andavano a casa, prendevano la gallina e gliela portavano, invece io, con altri, eravamo un quattro cinque, dell’orfanotrofio, dove andavamo a prendere le galline e insomma io, alzo la mano, vado a prendere e mi ha lasciato andare io e un altro e quando siamo rimasti fuori dalla scuola, e adesso cosa facciamo, dove, come facciamo a portare una gallina, quello se, se non portiamo una gallina ci da tante di quelle botte, stiamo, e noi siamo andati a rubare le galline [laughs], beh in un pollaio abbiamo rubato le galline abbiamo, sai, le avventure della scuola. Della guerra perché quello lì si capisce che aveva sempre fame, no, e allora lo mandava, non poteva andare fuori adesso viene neanche da parlare, ma allora e vabbè, c’è chi mandava a prendere le uova o bene o male bisognava tornare indietro con qualche cosa e allora noi, per non essere interrogati o giù di lì, chiedevamo di andare fuori di scuola ma per noi era brutta perché non avevamo i genitori, la cascina, loro, bisognava andare raccontando, c’era un ragazzo che era diventato, ma quello era grande, cleptomano, tutti i giorni andava dentro in qualche negozio e rubava o un salame o delle scatole di marmellata o rubava, o lo zucchero, rubava sempre un bordello, noi lo sapevamo, quando arrivava in istituto, cioè un collegio non era un istituto, ero, , arrivava in collegio, gli buttevamo su una mantella sulla testa, gli portavamo via tutto [laughs] e lui il giorno dopo era daccapo, tanto per divertimen to, per dire! . Sì perché c’era l’orfanotrofio c’erano i maschi da una parte e le femmine dall’altra e naturalmente noi maschi quelle, [laughs] le femmine le erano un po’, su, mi spiego, e allora cercavamo di andare di nascosto dalle femmine ma c’erano sempre le suore che ci bloccavano e le studiavamo in tutti i modi per cercare di andare di là. Le avventure di istituto. E in tempo, sì in tempo di guerra lì, ecco, c’era un orto grandissimo lì dietro l’istituto in cui si erano piazzati, hann messo giù le tende tutto, gli indiani, mi viene in mente adesso, un accampamento di indiani. Dall’alto dell’istituto si vedeva questo accampamento. E noialtri, io sempre in testa perché le combinavo sempre, le tende eravamo convinti che c’era qualche cosa di buono, del cioccolato, così, e allora buttavamo giù i cuscini in quell’accampamento lì l’inizio, però per andare là bisognava passare dove c’era il reparto delle femmine, e o bene o male aspettavamo che passassero suore, c’erano delle suore un po’ anzianotte, e quando passava una suora, due o tre sotto là e zac!. E c’è stato un giorno che abbiamo portato via un sacco, no, due o tre sacchi di roba così. Eravamo convinti che era zucchero, li abbiamo portati su nelle camerate e poi quando li abbiamo aperti era tutto pepe e allora pepe dappertutto, un disastro solo, da ragazzi, mi è venuto in mente adesso. Li indiani, c’erano anche indiani in tempo di guerra, sì, sì, me lo ricordo, il pepe, lì eccetera. Avevo una bomba a mano io. C’era uno del mio paese che è stato chiamato a fare il militare e allora era stato traferito lì nella ferrovia, la stazione di dietro lì[unclear], le ferrovie insomma ecco, faceva il militare lì. Io quando ho saputo che era lì, allora andavo a trovarlo con un altro compagno così, perché ho detto, la fame non era un problema ma c’erano dei momenti che facevi la fame anche lì, no, la fame è la fame! E allora quando andavo lì a trovare questo amico, diciamo così del paese, preparava sempre qualcosa da mangiare, ci dava da mangiare sempre in due, traversavamo tutti i binari, nessuno ci diceva niente, traversavamo i binari, andavamo lì, ci dava da mangiare. E un giorno mi ha dato una bomba a mano, la Balilla, si chiamavano Balilla quelle lì, e me l’ha data lui e ero diventato il padrone dell’istituto con quella Balilla, del collegio con quella Balilla lì. Poi lo sapevano tutti che l’avevo e allora tutti avevano paura di me [laughs]. Poi un bel momento glielo data indietro perché mi aveva spiegato di non tirare questa qui, se no scoppiava e allora poi glielo data indietro. Tempo di guerra, eh. Dunque, sì poi c’era quello lì, l’ho detto, accennato, che ecco, di qui anche i ragazzi avevano paura. C’era la Villa Triste a Broni. Proprio dove c’è la piazza a Broni grande lì c’è ancora quella villa lì. Ecco, lì è dove entravano dentro e sparivano. Uccidevano eccetera, la chiamavano Villa Triste, che l’aveva in mano prima i tedeschi poi i fascisti. Eh ma, soprattutto quando l’hanno presa i fascisti, allora lì sparivano parecchie persone, anche del mio paese ne sono sparite diversi. Quelli li uccidevano o chissà ecco. Di questa qui da ragazzino, che da ragazzino avevamo paura difatti io andavo a Broni sempre mandato a prendere qualcosa dal Risù, da fare le spese e via eccetera, io poi soldi ne avevo in abbondanza perché li prendevo dove c’erano, c’era, erano nell’osteria, no, sapevo anch’io che, e c’era un cassetto con i soldi che prendevo, io ne prendevo solo una manciata, mettevo in tasca, andavo a Broni, Stradella, andavo nelle pasticcerie, a mangiare la cioccolata, i biscotti, ne facevo delle scorpacciate, ci andavo di frequente, no, per fare delle commissioni, nello stesso tempo io vedevo e questa villa qui, anch’io da ragazzo ci giravo al largo perché avevo paura, anche era entrata un po’ nella nostra mentalità, no, e allora, Villa Triste sì, c’era a Broni sì. [unclear] La Todt l’ho detto, sordomuto quello là che l’hanno ucciso, Pippo.
FA: E a Broni e Stradella invece non bombardavano?
FN: No. Sì, poteva fare disastri Pippo, perché Pippo era anche lì. Però Broni, Stradella non è mai stata bombardata, che sappia io, no, no, no. Che poi Broni e Stradella erano diventate il centro vero e proprio degli sfollati milanesi eh, perché tutti i giorni c’era la Lombarda, c’erano queste corriere lombarde, tre, quattro, a volte sei, tutte in fila e si scaricavano tutte a Broni e a Stradella. Poi andavano su nelle colline ma tutto il giorno era una fiumana di persone, però il paese così, Broni e Stradella, le ferrovie, no, non è mai stata, anche l’industria che c’era, le robe via, la Gea, tutte quelle ditte lì grosse abbastanza ma non sono mai state bombardate quelle zone lì, che sappia io. Allora, fate domande e io vi rispondo.
FA: Va bene.
FN: [unclear]
FA: Vuole dirci qualcos’altro?
FN: No, [unclear] sono magari dopo quando siete andati via mi viene in mente delle altre. Tedeschi ubriachi, le fucilazioni, testimoni, sono cose vere queste eh, che ho raccontato, mica le invento eh. Società, avevo dimenticato società la Lombarda, la Lombarda la chiamavano, biblioteca, giovanotti, tedeschi ritirata, , amico maciullato, non mi ricordo più il nome, era un ragazzino, aveva la mia età, funerale, anche qua hanno mitragliato, la Todt, la Todt anche quella lì, faceva, che poi era il disastro quando c’era il Po in piena, con tutto l’argine bucato perché c’è stato una volta che poi il Po era arrivato fino a Campospinoso Albaredo, sì, me li ricordo un anno e appunto perché l’argine era bucato e l’acqua, era bucato da queste trincee che facevano, no, era bucato e fino a Campospinoso Albaredo una volta è arrivato il Po, anche lì c’era un bel, era un bel disastro eh, e allora e poi finita la guerra allora andavamo a prendere le lepri, correvamo dietro le lepri perché non c’era più il divieto di caccia perché in quel paese lì, Campospinoso Albaredo era il paese, era un padrone solo, gli Arnaboldi, e ho conosciuto Arnaboldi, proprio il figlio, la madre, la figlia, era un padrone solo, terreni e tutto.
CI: Era ricco.
FN: Eh?
CI: Era ricco.
FN: Era Arnaboldi. Adesso tant’è che c’è ancora, adesso c’è il ricovero intestato ad Arnaboldi poi quando poi è morto anche il figlio andava a cavallo non so è morto, allora il paese hann cominciato a venderlo, casa per casa, l’han venduto tutto però Arnaboldi era, conte Arnaboldi, capitava.
CI: Era una potenza.
FN: Era una potenza allora, quel paese era così e tutti, tutti, tutti lavoravano nella proprietà di questo conte. Quello di Campospinoso Albaredo che poi adesso si è allargato ma il paese era tutto su una striscia [unclear], tutti, tutti, tutti lavoravano per questo conte, la terra. E poi aveva ogni famiglia c’era la raccolta del baco da seta, ogni famiglia aveva la sua stanza del baco da seta e il conte Arnaboldi, il bozzolo così bisognava consegnarli tutti a questo conte, venivano pagato un tot ma non so era così, però era conte Arnaboldi quel paese lì, lo sapevi, lo sai adesso.
FA: Va bene. Allora la, la ringraziamo per questa intervista.
FN: No, io, non so, adesso, quello, io ho raccontato quello che mi è venuto in mente.
CI: Fuori programma.
FN: Fuori programma.
CI: Una cosa che ricordo bene di te quando eravamo là agli Artigianelli, tu sei arrivato che eri già, avevi già quattordici anni o che, io
FN: Eh sì, perché, sì, sì.
CI: Noi lì eravamo, beh
FN: Avevo finito
CI: Un collegio da preti, no, quindi c’era un certo comportamento e lui l’è rivà e l’ canteva, s’è scincà la pel del cul, Donna Vughere, Donna Vughere, s’è scincà la pel del cul, Donna Vughere fala giustà.
FN: Ero, no, io.
CI: [laughs] Te lo ricordi te?
FN: Sì. Eh, io ero ragazzino. Lo dico adesso.
CI: Era un po’ differente da tutti gli altri. Lui era venuto, gli altri sono venuti in un età un po’ meno, dopo la quinta elementare ma lui è arrivato già, sui quattordici anni, quindici, era, poi aveva subito una vita un po’ disastrosa via, cioè, era euforico, teneva allegro un po’ tutti eh, era un po’ un punto d’appoggi, da esterno diciamo, diceva delle cose che gli altri non si permettevano di dire ma lui.
FN: Ma no, è perché io, io ho avuto anche quella fortuna lì, nonostante tutto, io sono sempre stato un ragazzo buono, cioè bravo, buono ecco più che altro, mai cattivo.
CI: Sì, di animo buono.
FN: Ecco, animo buono. Però sono sempre stato uno, un tipo allegro e ne inventavo di tutti i colori. Per esempio io quando sono entrato negli Artigianelli, ero, sempre stato anche attivo, no, non so se c’entra con la guerra, però io.
CI: No, ma hai spento?
FN: E’ spento.
CI: Spento.
FN: Io però adesso tanto per andare dentro un po’ in tutto nel, quando sono venuto negli Artigianelli io sono sempre stato un tipo in movimento, non stavo fermo no e ho sempre organizzato tante cose, tant’è che poi è quello che ho raccontato adesso, devo avere anche delle fotografie lì. Tant’è che avevo preso anche una certa carica negli scout, no, hai presente che ci sei anche tu negli scout.
CI: Sì, sì negli scout eravamo.
FN: E nell’Azione Cattolica. E mi avevano messo anche, mi avevano dato degli incarichi di responsabilità. E allora nelle mie.
CI: Eri capogruppo te.
FN: Sì. E allora io organizzavo e avevo organizzato una gita in barca, che è quando è annegato [pauses] un ragazzo. Insomma, io ho, poi dopo sono andato, ho imparato, sono diventato insegnante, ho diretto un grande stabilimento ma organizzavo sempre le gite io, nelle scuole soprattutto.
CI: Aveva sempre la macchina fotografica a tracolla.
FN: Sì, io c’avevo sempre.
CI: Appassionato di macchine.
FN: Quello ormai è diventata vecchia, me la son messa qui quando.
FA: Quando è entrato nell’Azione Cattolica?
CI: No, beh, era una cosa particolare interna, ero, io ero l’unico che ero nelle, però per essere boy scout bisognava essere anche nell’azione cattolico. Io ero l’unico, ero un boy scout ma non ero iscritto all’azione cattolica.
FN: Sì, ma prima c’era l’Azione Cattolica dentro, l’Azione Cattolica era come c’era a Pavia, era un’associazione.
CI: Sì, era negli oratori no.
FN: Era un’associazione.
CI: E lì era radicata come internamente.
FN: Sì, come era negli oratori, insomma giovanotti così no, tant’è che quando siamo andati a Roma ho preso tante di quelle botte ma le ho date anche mi è, perché avevo in mano una statua di San Pietro, eh!
FA: Ma chi è che l’ha picchiata?
FN: I compagni, è per quello che poi non, i compagni mi sono sempre andati giù per traverso, no. Vabbè. Giravo per Pavia con un coltello perché c’erano i compagni, perché loro era il momento, vestiti da Boy Scout, sti uomini anche di una certa età che ti prendevano in giro, ma mica venivano vicino a me però. Gli altri scappavano ma vicino a me non ci venivano. A Roma tutti, se ti ricordi il nome perché, l’organizzazione , a Roma c’è stato, era l’organizzazione organizzato da Carlo Carretto, i baschi verdi.
CI: Carlo Carretto era il presidente dell’Azione Cattolica italiana.
FN: I baschi verdi, i giovanotti edell’Azione Cattolica li chiamavano i baschi verdi, a Roma tutti coi baschi verdi, no, che erano allora più di cinquecentomila. E noi andavamo a dormire con gli Artigianelli, col Vergari andavamo a dormire un po’ fuori Roma. C’era un capannone, c’erano delle suore lì e facendo la strada, vero, perché i compagni in quel, quando c’è stato l’incontro con il Papa, avevano paura di tutto questo baccano di questo giovanotti, allora avevano dato ordine di, tutti, di rifugiarsi loro nelle loro sedi. Senonché c’è stato un errore che quando è venuto, veniva oramai il discorso del Papa, tutti questi giovanotti se ne tornavano nei loro posti dove dovevano andare a dormire e nello stesso tempo i compagni avevano la libera uscita per uscire dalle loro sedi e ci sono stati gli scontri, ecco, e allora, il mio gruppo, vero, che poi posso farti i nomi, Barbierato, tutti quei, tu li conosci, li hai conosciuti no, eravamo tutti insieme e andavamo giù verso il [unclear] e nello stesso tempo veniva su un gruppo di uomini, maturi anche uomini maturi e lì c’è stato uno scontro, [unclear], cioè ma quelli là, noi l’avevamo presa così andavamo giù tranquilli, quelli là hanno cominciato a dare botte e tutti sti ragazzi, compagni, amici, scappare a destra e a sinistra, io sono rimasto da solo con quella statua lì, ho preso tanti di quei calci, ma ne ho dati via dove potevo e alcuni li ho feriti anche seriamente e nello stesso tempo, neanche a farlo apposta, è venuto fuori un temporale. Nello stesso tempo hanno fatto, facevano, si sono messi a fare i fuochi artificiali. Tra temporale, tuoni e fuochi artificiali è venuto fuori un bordello, hanno chiamato la croce verde, eh caro mio, non c’era mica tanto da scherzare eh, ecco. Comunque tutte le gite che io ho fatto, ho sempre avuto dei morti.
FA: E chi c’era come Papa?
FN: Pio XII.
CI: Pio XII.
FN: Era Pio, sì, Pio XII.
CI: Pio XII. Papa Pacelli.
FN: Papa Pacelli deve essere.
FA: E che anno? Più o meno?
FN: ’48, o no? ’48.
CI: ’60?
FN: No, che ’60. ’48.
CI: ’48.
FA: Va bene.
FN: No, no, no.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Franco NocchieriDescriptionAn account of the resourceFranco Nocchieri recalls his early years as an orphan in several different towns in the Province of Pavia. He describes the bombing of the Voghera railway station, which started while he was heading to school. He goes on to explain how he and his schoolmates used to cheer during air-raids, as they were free to skip school and play. He recounts his experience as live-in delivery boy at his stepfather’s tavern at Albaredo Arnaboldi, a vantage point from which he witnessed the daily attempts to destroy the Ponte della Becca, a bridge across the Po river. Franco describes his memories of ‘Pippo’, which he tried to watch every night, and mentions it dropping explosive devices disguised as fountain pens and toys. He describes the difficult coexistence between the local population and Axis troops, stressing the brutality of fascist militiamen. He also describes the fearsome reputation of a prison in the nearby town of Broni, known as ‘Villa Triste’, where many people disappeared. He remarks on his fearless attitude, except while listening to Radio Londra, which was a criminal offence at the time. Franco comments on the food shortages of the time and describes how the poor resorted to eating cats, which were considered to be a substitute for rabbit. He also recounts several wartime events, including: a narrow escape from the Ponte della Becca bombing; widespread fear inspired by so-called ‘Mongols’ (which were part of a German foreign division); a public execution; a friend killed by a bomb believed to have been dropped by ‘Pippo’; the strafing of a funeral procession, and the sight of Felice Fiorentini, a war criminal dubbed 'The Beast', being paraded in and around the province in a cage after the end of the war. He also mentions various stories from his time as a member of the Azione Cattolica Italiana, a Roman Catholic lay association.CreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceFilippo AndiPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Bombing, AerialSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.ItalyItaly--Po River ValleyItaly--BroniItaly--VogheraItaly--PaviaContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourcePeter SchulzeDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2017-02-02FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource01:05:47 audio recordingLanguageA language of the resourceitaRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextANocchieriF170202TypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantCivilianConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.MD0 stableanimalbombingfearhome frontPippoResistancestrafinghttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/4/9/PAndersonW1501.2.jpgb8318f95c9e8a84de911a5de119b51d1https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/4/9/AAndersonW150517.2.mp3ef44f5cd625b5a6c6073e5750d52d7b0Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceAnderson, WilliamWilliam AndersonLes AndersonW L M AndersonWilliam Leslie Milne AndersonDescriptionAn account of the resourceTwo items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer William Leslie Milne Anderson (1925 - 2018, 196733 Royal Air Force), and one photograph. William Anderson was a flight engineer and flew operations in Lancasters with 166 Squadron from RAF Kirmington.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by William Anderson and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-05-17RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAnderson, WTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentWA: My name is William Lesley Milne Anderson, and I’m recording this for the International Bomber Command Centre, on the seventeenth of May, 2015 [pause] at – where am I [pause] at Beverley, in Yorkshire.
MJ: Right that’ll –
WA: Right [pause] I was a flight engineer on Lancaster aircraft. My rank a, at the end was flying [emphasis] officer. [Pause] I went to Edinburgh Aircrew Recruitment Centre when I was eighteen and a quarter, hoping to join the RAF and to fly. Everybody wanted to be a pilot. I went there with a school pal of mine who was going to join up as well, but we were told, at that time, if we wanted to be down for pilots, if we pass the various medical and tests, we would have to wait for nine months before we were called up. So this friend of mine decided, ‘fair enough’, to accept nine months wait so that he could eventually become a pilot, whereas I decided that I’d go for something else, and when I asked what was available to go more or less straight away I was told ‘a flight engineer’, so I said ‘that’ll do me fine’. [Pause] I w – when war broke out I’d only be, oh, fourteen [pause] and [pause] but, I thought ‘well, if I’ve got to go into the forces, I would rather fly somewhere than walk in the Army [laughs] to get there’, so that’s why I chose the Air Force. The training was at a place called Saint Athan in South Wales, that was after – well funnily enough, I had to report to Lords cricket ground, and that was where we had a medical and were issued with a uniform, and then we were marched along to a part of London called Saint John’s Wood, and when we had to go and collect our pay one day we were marched to the zoo [emphasis], I thought – was funny, I been in the Air Force and I’ve landed in a cricket ground, in a block of flats, and I get paid from the zoo [laughs]. So I thought ‘when do I see an aeroplane’. However, I was, was going to have to wait quite a bit longer [emphasis] because after, think it was a fortnight or three weeks, we were posted to Torquay, and when we got to Torquay we found that quite a lot of the hotels [pause] had been taken over by the RAF, and there, once again [emphasis], no aeroplanes in sight! But we did the basic training, the marching, ohhhh, the guard duties, even a bit of clay pigeon [emphasis] shooting, and this went on for about twelve weeks, and after the twelve weeks we were sent off to Saint Athan, and at last [emphasis] thank goodness, there were aeroplanes, because [pause] it was – I can’t remember exactly how long, but it was interesting, not sitting in little classrooms, but in a big [pause] building – a hanger I suppose – divided up into sections, where you could hear what was going on just across the wooden division that was separating you from the next group. So anyway – oh I missed the bit out where, at – the important bit, was I couldn’t swim [emphasis] [pause] and, they didn’t tell me, when I got to Torquay, until I got to Torquay, that I had to pass a swimming [emphasis] test, and so they took us down to the harbour, and the Corporal lined at the squad I was in [?], on the harbour, and told us we were going to jump in, and swim down just about twenty yards to a set of steps so that we could climb up to the top again. Luckily we had a Mae West , but [emphasis] my name being Anderson, on some occasions, is very handy because quite often you’re first, but in this case there was a chap called Adams before me, and when the Corporal said ‘Adams, jump in’, Adams said ‘I can’t swim, I’m not jumping in’, and so he said ‘Anderson, in you go’, and I said ‘I can’t swim, I’m not jumping in’, and so he said ‘if you go in the way I tell you to, you’ll go in and hit the water without doing yourself any damage. If I’ve got to push [emphasis] you in, you might land on your head or your back or your behind’, so bearing in mind that we got a Mae West on, he said ‘curl your toes over the edge of the harbour wall [pause] hold your nose, and take one step forward’, and of course, went down, and when I opened my eyes under water I saw millions of little bubbles, and with a Mae West on I was shot to the surface and up, and somehow or other I managed to get to the steps – don’t know how. But, when all the squad had been in, there was Adams, still in the water, still in the same spot where he’d jumped in, paddling like mad but going nowhere. So the Corporal said, ‘one of the swimmers, jump in, drag him to the side’, and that was our introduction to swimming. The rest of the swimming was done in the baths. And then, when we got to Saint Athan we carried on with swimming there. [Pause] Now, so, we did quite a bit of training at Saint Athan, I would say it was a very good course, and so, when the course was finished, although we’d made some friends during the time we were there, we were broken up by being posted to different placed training units up and down the country. I landed up in 1656 Heavy Conversion Unit at Lindholme just outside Doncaster. That was where I met the crew. The six other crew had been together for a while, flying of course, in two-engined Wellingtons, and the Conversion Unit was to convert them to four engine aircrafts so they had to pick up a flight engineer. At that time, which would be [pause] forty-three [pause] forty-three, most of the Lancasters were going from the factories to the squadrons, so we were actually trained on Halifaxes [pause] and then after a course there we went for a fortnight to RAF Hemswell which at that time was number one Lancaster finishing school, and we were only there for [pause] two weeks, and I seem to remember [pause] most of the work that we did there was ground work on the systems different in the Lancaster from the Halifaxes and the flying [pause] consisted only of circuits and bumps, daylight, circuits and bumps at night, and the number of flying errands we did was eight, and we were sent off to the squadron, and the squadron happened to be 166 Kirmington, which nowadays is, of course, Humberside International Airport. [Pause] At Kirmington [pause] it was a fairly basic [emphasis] airfield, had only opened in forty-three, near the end of the year, and [pause] roundabout in the countryside there were lots and lots of trees, forest, and the, the huts, the mission huts we were in, were in the trees. Fair bit of walking to be done to get to the airfield if you happen to miss the transports, but [pause] on the whole, it was Kirmington village, the people were very good to us, although I didn’t particularly drink, there was only one pub in the village [pause] that was in forty-four by this time – May. Now [pause] oh, got stuck, um, yes. The crew that I joined at Lindholme contained three Canadians, the mid-upper gunner, the rear gunner, and bomb aimer, were all from Canada. The pilot was English, from Halifax, the navigator was from Leicester, and the wireless operator was from a village – I’ve forgotten the name of the village again, but up somewhere around Newcastle. [Pause] Anyway, off we go, and start operations. We were lucky [pause] inasmuch that the battle for Berlin had finished roughly in the January of that year, because Berlin causalities had been heavy. Many of the trips that we did were not long trips because at that time – [pause] oh, forgotten, sixth of June, D-Day, that was the start, that was my first operation, sixth of June, D-Day, and that was to a marshalling yard north of Paris. A lot of marshalling yards had, were being attacked to make sure that the troops and supplies didn’t reach D-Day, er, reach the [pause] [knocks on something] [pause] and of course [pause] doodlebugs had put in an appearance, and so they had to be taken care of, and so many of the doodlebugs were, weren’t very far in to France, so a number of the trips were fairly short. For that we were thankful. Some of the trips of course were quite long. Anyway, we had got there in May, forty-four, and we did our last trip on the thirtieth of August forty-four. My skipper, the navigator, and myself, were all posted back to Lindholme as instructors. My skipper decided that he would like to stay in the RAF and by this time he had become a squadron leader, so he applied for a permanent commission. He stayed in and did his time after the war was finished, and finished up as Group Captain Laurie Holmes DFC, AFC [pause] and the OBE [laughs]. [Pause] When the war finished, because of my age I knew my demob group was a long way off, and I didn’t see much point in instructing to pass crews on to still to squadrons as if the war was still on, so I applied to join Transport Command. [Pause] Just as well, because, although the war finished, May, forty-five, I didn’t get out until, somewhere about August forty-seven! [Laughs]. But in that time I saw quite a bit of the world and got paid for it in Transport Command, flying on Yorks, which was virtually a Lancaster with a different shaped body. First flying carrying freight, because they changed the shape of the body so that freight could go easily in, or seats could be put in for passengers. After a number of trips taking us as far as Delhi and back, we were reassessed and went on to passenger carrying. Still Yorks, of course this time with seats in, and we went as far as Changi, Singapore, and that was our turnaround point, and came back. [Unclear muttering] [break in tape]. Well luck [emphasis] had to play a big part in things, I mean as I said earlier on, many, a number of our flights were fairly short because it was the time when doodlebugs were around, and they had got to be get rid [emphasis] of. Also, when you found that you were maybe down for mining. Mining was considered a, oh, quite a, you know, easy [emphasis] flight, mining, going along drop some mines in the water, come back. But we, one night, had to go to a place about fifty miles from Russia, right along the Baltic, and there were the airfield next to us, or closest to us, was called Elsham Wolds and there they had a, oh well all together there twelve Lancasters going mining at this target, all that distance away, and five were from Kirmington, and seven were from Elsham Wolds. Now because it was near the end of our tour, [unclear] some systems and some squadrons where, as you were classed as being more experienced, you moved up, from say maybe the third wave, to the second, to the first, and somebody got to be first in dropping – until this particular night we were down to drop first, the mines. But we went out with four hundred other aircraft that were going to Keel, but so we left this country, crossed the North Sea, in the company of four hundred other aircraft. Didn’t see four hundred aircraft but nevertheless, that’s what they said there were there, and then they turned off to starboard, to head for Kiel, where we kept on along the Baltic – twelve of us, supposed to be. As we got near the target [pause] a searchlight popped up, and another one, and another one, the three of them started waving around and we thought ‘they know we’re coming’. However, after they’d waved about for a little while they all went out – sigh of relief. So we were supposed to drop first. So we dropped and went through the target a bit and turned away and headed back, and as we turned away the searchlights came on, so the rest of the aircraft had to come through searchlights, but, although there was fire from the Baltic, from ships in the Baltic and [emphasis] from the harbour, we didn’t see any aircraft shot down. However, we had been told that we might not get back into Kirmington because of weather and so we were given an alternative route back to land at Lossiemouth, North of Scotland, so we landed up there, and but there weren’t twelve Lancasters, but we didn’t think much of it at the time because [pause] we knew that the weather was such that we weren’t getting back into Kirmington or Elsham, so then, landed somewhere else, maybe couldn’t get into Lossiemouth, or anyway, I don’t know, but it wasn’t until the next day that we got back to Kirmington that we found that we had lost two out of the five aircraft and word came through from Elsham Wolds that they had lost three out of the seven. Which meant five out of twelve, which wasn’t a very good result, and yet [emphasis] in coming back all [emphasis] that way, along the Baltic, we didn’t see an aircraft being attacked, or an explosion, but when the chap called – Squadron Leader Wright [?] came to read or to write the history of 166 Squadron, in doing research, they found the bodies had been washed up in, er, countries bordering the Baltic, from, from the raids. So, there we are – luck. Lost five out of twelve aircraft, but you haven’t seen one attacked, you haven’t seen one explode, you haven’t seen one on fire, you get back to Lossiemouth without any problems, you know.
MJ: And that’s unusual.
WA: Aye. But five out of twelve, aye. But for a mining trip, and people were thinking ‘oh, Holmsey [?] and crew they’ve been lucky they’ve been down to do a mining trip tonight’ you know, aye [laughs]. So, aye it’s, I don’t know. Anyway, anyway up there, that’s [break in tape].
MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command Oral History Project, I Michael Jeffries would like to thank Flight Officer Anderson for his recording on the date of the seventeenth of May, 2015. Thank you very much.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with William AndersonDescriptionAn account of the resourceFlight Officer William Anderson began his service in the Royal Air Force at the age of eighteen when he signed up in Edinburgh. In this interview he speaks about his training, reporting to Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, being paid at the London Zoo, and having to learn quickly how to swim in Torquay. After training at RAF St Athan, he was posted to 1656 Heavy Conversion Unit, and joined a Lancaster crew based at RAF Kirmington. His first operation was on D-Day to a marshalling yard near Paris. After that Anderson recounts stories of going on mine laying operations, particularly one over the Baltic, where five out of twelve aircraft were lost on one operation. CreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceMichael JeffriesPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceChristina BrownHeather HughesIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAAndersonW150517SubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber CommandFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:30:43 audio recordingDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-05-17LanguageA language of the resourceengRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.TypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandRoyal Air Force. Transport CommandSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Great BritainEnglandFranceWalesAtlantic Ocean--Baltic SeaEngland--DevonEngland--LincolnshireEngland--YorkshireFrance--NormandyScotland--MorayshireWales--Vale of GlamorganTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1944166 SquadronbombingHalifaxheavy conversion unitLancastermine layingNormandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)RAF KirmingtonRAF LindholmeRAF LossiemouthRAF St Athantraininghttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/127/11/ATurnerB150602.1.mp31c6080ee78c66828fc79e2847ce7791dDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceTurner, BettyB TurnerRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. DescriptionAn account of the resourceFour items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Betty Turner, (– 2015, 2146029), a photograph and two poems. Leading aircraftswoman Betty Turner served in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force at 92 Group Headquarters as a wireless operator. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Betty Turner and catalogued by Barry Hunter.DateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-06-02IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextTurner, BPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentOther persons present: Betty Turner’s daughter, Shelley Marshall [SM]
HH: Ok. Here we are, my name is Heather Hughes, and I’m sitting with Betty Turner who was in the WAAFs during World War 2, in Betty’s home in Bierton and it is Tue, Wednesday? , Tuesday, Tuesday the 2nd of June, 2015. Thank you Betty, so much, for agreeing to do this interview today.
BT: You’re very [emphasis] welcome indeed.
HH: Betty I wonder if we could start by talking about where you were born and grew up?
BT: I was born in Aylesbury, I went to school in Aylesbury, and [pause], I went from here and signed up when the war was on - well, at first, of course, I was working at, um, a very – when I was fourteen we had to leave school in those days at fourteen, and I had a job in a very exclusive shoe shop. I always loved that shop, I was bound and determined I was going to get a job there, and I did, and –
HH: Do you remember the name of the shoe shop?
BT: Yes! It was Ivords [?] and we had customers like the Dimbleby boys, their father was away in the war of course when they would come in, and there would be the sister and the two brothers, and mom would come in with them, and I would wait on them for shoes, not realising how famous they [emphasis] were going to be. Anyway, that was my – and then, I decided – I had a boyfriend, who was shot down, over France, and killed, and the very next day I said I’m joining the, the WAAF. I was seventeen at the time, and, so my mother said ‘alright, I’ll take you to join up’ to High Wycombe – we had to go to High Wycombe – and my brother at the same time wanted to come with us, and he said ‘I’m going to join up too’, but he was only fifteen. Anyway [pause, deep breath] I joined up, and this was in December, December 6th I always remember – the date of the, that Caley was shot down – and I, um, went to Wycombe as I say, the next day, and that was about the 7th of December that I actually went to give my signature –
HH: Was that in nineteen - ?
BT: Forty-two.
HH: Forty-two.
BT: Forty-two. But I wasn’t called until January – first week, I believe, but it was January anyway when I actually went, and I left here, and went to [pause] Gloucester. I think it was Gloucester.
HH: And is that where you went for training?
BT: Ye – well… Yes, to sort you out I think in Gloucester, your uniforms, and what you ought to be and things like that you know. I said driver please [?] [laughs] and they killed themselves laughing, I’m only five foot, I wouldn’t reach the pedals on the trucks at all [laughs]. But I think everybody asked to be a driver when they first joined up. Anyway, at that point we went to Morecombe for square-bashing, and when we came back – I think it was Innsworth, I’m not sure, you know, the memory fades a bit doesn’t it? But there [emphasis] they gave us some, sort of, tests [emphasis] about different things and they needed wireless operators apparently, and everybody had to sit around with a paper and pencil, and they would give you, er, records – they would play a record, and they’d say ‘now you’re going to hear some dots and dashes. All I want you to do is to tell me whether they’re the same each time or different’, and so the record would start and we would have to say write it all down, and I apparently did fine, and they thought immediately well ‘she’s ok she could be a wireless operator’, and after I had done my square bashing – that was first – they read that I was coming to Winslow in Buckinghamshire, and I thought ‘ooh dear’ - I wanted to go somewhere exciting [laughs]. But I, there you go, I came home – quite close to home anyway, only ten miles actually away. It was okay, I had the best of both worlds really didn’t I? They said ‘you’re going to 92 Group Headquarters – Bomber Command’. So, I, that’s what I did! I came over to Winslow, and there didn’t seem to be a lot of RAF around but it was because everybody was on shift work, and the hours would be – I can’t remember all the hours but it’s in that, um, brochure I gave you, from like eight o’clock in the morning ‘til midnight, long hours it seemed. Some were shorter hours and then we would have a couple of days off.
HH: And what did you do with your days off?
BT: I’d come home. And my father would, usually, ask me if I was alright, and did I need any money, and sometimes leave me ten bobs [laughs], ten bob, at the side of my bed, and I’d wake up in the morning and I’d say ‘whoopee I’ve got some money!’ [laughs]. We never had any money, and we always seemed hungry. We were always ready to go into a restaurant and eat if we could find a place to do it, you know, because restaurants, things weren’t easy in the restaurants at that time. Anyway so that was fine. The work was just really [emphasis] quite boring, because that’s all you did was put your earphones on and you had a key, and you had, um, you had receiving and you had sending of Morse code constantly, and it was [emphasis] pretty boring.
HH: But very vital.
BT: But vital, I suppose – well I found that out later, but I didn’t know what I did, and it was just different, really. In the morning we would check with the, all the stations that we had, and they’re on their paper – I can’t remember the names of them all – but the different stations that were in that 92 Group then they would send Morse back to us and you know we would answer backwards and forwards. Not plain language, most of the time, it was certain, certain codes that we would send to them. Every half an hour we would have to send a very very powerful signal – I can still remember it today it was V3A – and then we would give them the time, and we’d go ‘dee dee, dee dee’ [making Morse code sounds] until the second hand went onto the twelve we would hit the key, down, and um, apparently it was for other aircraft and everybody to get their time right, you know, er, it was a very powerful signal and it could be heard many many thousands of miles away, but we never knew why we were doing it. We never asked questions. We signed the secrets thing and we never spoke about what we did. My dad asked me about what we did and ‘oh I just Morse code, you know’, but nobody knew. We didn’t know why we were doing it. And then another time we would fill pages of five letter groups, and five letter groups, and we had a pad, you know, a pad of paper that size and it was asking you questions on – you wrote down what you could hear in five letter groups, and then when your pad was full, you’d take all of the girls’, if they had them you’d collect them up and take them into the main room of the house, because we were in like a, like a Nissen type hut part that had been built on the front of the house, so that it was separate. But in the house we would go for other things like we would get - have our pay parade ever Friday, second Friday morning, and ‘quote your last three letters’ and ‘come to attention’ and they’d pay you, which was very nice, on every other week that would happen and um, that was in the house – we’d go in the house for that, and there was also a lot of RAF personnel in the house but we never actually saw the room that they were in, and outside, at night especially, we’d notice a motorbike – a guy with a motorbike, and we assumed that he must be doing something with what we were taking over to the house – we didn’t know of course. And it wasn’t until I went to Bletchley Park, many years later, and I could hear the Morse code going, and after looking at all the things and listening to the people that were leading us around, what we did, and I’m thinking ‘gosh! I remember that’ and ‘I remember this’, and ‘I remember that’, and it dawned on me what we were doing. But it was years afterwards, prior to that I had no knowledge of what we did, at all. Yeah there was a um – but when we were on, um, hours off, of course, that was very nice, we’d also have dances, at camp, we – the girls, were in the stables of the big house –
HH: Was it kind of dormitory type accommodation?
BT: No, it was, strictly – you know what stables look like, with horses in them? Well, we were in those same things but we weren’t horses [laughing]. We had potbelly stoves to keep us warm, you know [laughing], and it had a gutter where the horses used to do their business and it would run down into the drain, but that was cleaned out [laughing] before we went in there. Oh dear, yes, and at times it would be very draughty.
HH: So did you each have your own stable then?
BT: Well, no, there were two of us in the one stable. Oh well, yes, two of us in each stable – pretty sure it was only two of us, yeah I think it was two, but of course, in the long building itself, there would be lots of, lots of stables. Eventually after I had been there about a – two years, I finally got to go in the house, but I’m sure that was servants’ quarters for the girls - some of the girls would go in there, and then any new girls coming along would go in the stables I suppose. Although, when war ended, when VE Day came along, it was very quickly destroyed, our cabin. Everything [emphasis] was destroyed very very quickly. And there was no more Morse code – nothing – it just stopped, and we were all posted to other places. Then [emphasis] I really enjoyed the work [laughs], I was posted to a place called Great Massingham – that’s up near the Wash, we decided, I’ve seen it on the map yes, up near the Wash – and it was, I was put in the Officers’ Mess, in the corner, with a telephone and a desk, and the calls would come in for the boys from their girlfriends or their wives, and I’d be the one to call out their name and say ‘you are wanted on the telephone’, and it was super [emphasis]. And in the morning, instead of going to the cook house like we used to do at Winslow, I would go and I would have a nice fried breakfast, the same as the officers would have. I’d have mine first though before I went on duty, then later on of course they would all come in and have their breakfast, it was very nice. That was a super job! And I actually saw the planes for a change, because we saw no planes on our camp at all, except the Wellingtons at, at um [pause] what is the – not Wing, not Wing, where - oh I can’t think of the name of the – but we used to have to go onto that field aerodrome when we were doing our experience flights which we didn’t enjoy very much really –
HH: What did that involve?
BT: It involved flying around with a pilot, and I think we were supposed to work the set I’m not quite sure [laughing] I can’t remember. It was to find out how difficult it is to keep on frequency so they wanted us to experience, you know, what it was like to fly – I only went up a couple of times though [pause] but it was – I would not volunteer to go. I did not [emphasis] enjoy it. Sometimes the pilots used to make fun of us, be heading for a barrage balloon and say ‘oh I don’t think I’m going to tell her’ [laughing]. They would tease us, in other words, they would tease us, and it wasn’t very nice really. But we did have fun when we were all off duty. We put on pantomime, well we put on one, and then there was a play. But unfortunately, just before I got to Winslow, there had been a Wellington come down and go into one of the houses and kill several people, and one of our sergeants managed to get some people out, and he got fairly [pause] badly burnt in a couple of places, and he got recommended for that. He really was quite a hero to the rest of them, they were all saying ‘what a great job you did’. But it was all over with when I got there – the rubble was there of course, they were cleaning up, but it was quite scary, really scary. [Pause] Our - we would try and get to work, or go down to – we would have bicycles a lot of us. I took my own bike to camp so that I could cycle home if I wanted to, although I preferred to take the bus – was easier.
HH: But did you use your bicycle around the camp?
BT: Yes. No, no we couldn’t cycle around our camp, we were at a big house, and all we had was a big driveway.
HH: Okay so you didn’t need to.
BT: We had… huts, the stables where we slept, and we had to come out and go to the bathrooms and bath huts and stuff there and then another hut was for our meals. Our canteen was at the other place, because we used to have to cycle through the village back to where we worked. The men were lucky, they were able to have lodgings and they had a landlady that would fix them meals and they would have lovely hot dinners when they got home at night and we had to go to the cook house. We had a cook house. But at the end of the war things began to happen a bit more – towards to end of the war, when the prisoners of war from Germany were coming back home we were, they, we were asked to go and volunteer to welcome the prisoners coming back, which was rather good.
HH: And where was that?
BT: That was at Wing I believe – I’m sure it was Wing although no place ever had a sign on it so we never knew where we were really. I think, from what I could work out, that it was Wing, and they were [pause] quite, quite a sad looking lot coming home but so thrilled to be coming home. And I always remember this one boy asked our girl that was our telephonist – one of our telephonist girls – if, um, he would call – if she would call his mother on this number and he gave her, and she said ‘yes I’ll do that for you’, so, when we got back to camp, she was doing some work there, and she phoned this number, and it was the mother that answered the phone, and she said ‘John would be seeing you in a couple of days’, and it was just the noise and um, a man came on then, and this man said ‘who is this?’ and she said ‘well I’m LACW’ so-and-so, what her name was, ‘I’m just telling you that your son will be home in a couple of days, probably, they have to go to a, a centre first for certain things’ - he said ‘well I hope you know what you’re talking about, because we’ve already been told that our son is missing, believed dead – believe killed’, and he was – well, we all cried. I think about it now and I cry a little bit. Yeah, so, um -
HH: That’s one story that at least had that happy ending.
BT: Yes, I know – I won a book once for writing that story out because I said I’ll never forget it. I said a lot of things I do forget, and a lot of things I think I imagine, ‘oh I couldn’t have done that, surely I couldn’t have done that’ sort of thing, ‘I wouldn’t tell anybody that I’m not going to say’ – and, but, I know that was true, because it, it caused such a – the rest of us in, at the cook house – we were all sitting around the table then when she was telling us about it, and we were all [emphasis] practically in tears. But I wonder how many times that happened, you know, I’m sure it must have happened lots of times, I’ve heard of it since actually happening. On this, “Next Generation”, or that “Last Generation”, the programmes that they’ve had – I’ve loved that series I’ve been watching it and I think ‘good on you!’ [laughs] you know, and they’re still going strong, it’s lovely.
HH: Betty what rank did you attain -
BT: LACW
HH: - in the WAAFs?
BT: Leading Aircraftwoman. So I started off as an AC2 and then an AC1, and then an LACW. Yeah. But um, I don’t know that I deserved it – maybe I did [laughs]
HH: I’m sure you did.
BT: I don’t know. I have my pay book still, and it said I was a keen and willing wireless operator, ‘very efficient’ it says [laughter] so –
HH: Well done.
BT: But it wasn’t any good trying to get a job after the war because [laughs] nobody wanted a wireless operator [laughs], a wireless operator.
HH: It would be good to talk about after the war. I just want to go back and ask you what kind of, what kind of [pause] relationships did you have with other WAAFs? I mean did you form quite a strong bond together?
BT: Oh we did yes, um, and it we were going on leave, one or two of us would go together. In fact, when I went on leave with my friend, she said to me, ‘where shall we go for our leave? When’s yours coming up?’, I said ‘mine is coming up on so-and-so’ – ‘so is mine’ she said, ‘let’s go a long way away’, because we would have a free travel warrant, so, I said ‘ok, well where will we go?’, she said ‘let’s go to Edinburgh’, I said ‘that’s a good idea, let’s go to Edinburgh, and we got on the train, and we had a wonderful journey. It was all the forces in the train, and she was a comedian anyway, and she had the place in stiches, it was hilarious [laughs] that whole trip was funny. And we went to the YMCA, YWCA I should say, and booked in, and we put our money in their safe, as they have, and when you go out you just take a certain amount of money with you. This parti – the f – second night I believe we were there, we decided to go to the Cavendish Ballroom, we were going to go to a dance, okay, so we bought our tickets to go in but when we got inside we realised we hadn’t taken enough – to buy our tea, that, or drink or whatever we wanted, and I said well it’s not far from where we’re, you know where we’re staying, ‘I’ll get the trolley, car’ or whatever it was at that time, and ‘I’ll go back and I’ll get us some more money’. ‘Okay’ says my friend, and when I got back to the Cavendish ballroom, there she was, sitting with a couple of Americans. And I said ‘oh, hi’, she said ‘this is so-and-so and this is so-and-so – I told him you like to dance because he likes to dance too’ [laughs], so I said ‘oh alright, I’ll dance with him’, and we not only danced with them, we spent, um, our days, because they were on furlough as well, and we were on furlough, or ‘leave’ as we call it, ‘furlough’ as they call it. And that whole week we spent going to pictures, but Sunday was a very miserable sort of day in Scotland –
HH: Still is in Scotland!
BT: [laughs] we had so many cups of tea, we were, we, we just floated, and we went to the zoo, and we went to, oh I don’t - I can’t remember where we went, but we went to the dancing again, we went, and when I got home back to camp, my friend that I had met in Scotland phoned me and asked me to meet him in London when I was next off. So I said ‘alright’ and we met a few times, and I brought him home to meet mum and dad, and he was in the Eighth Airforce – the American Eighth Airforce –
HH: Eighth in the East!
BT: And, um, we met quite a few times, and then one night the phone rang, I answered it, and – no, I was told, there’s a - you’re wanted on the phone, so I answered it and it was Fred and he said ‘hi Betty, we’re gonna go home, we’ve gotta get ready for the Far East’ because the Japanese were still fighting, of course, and he said ‘but, I want you to marry me before I go – will you marry me?’, and there was a – this is - I don’t like to say this because it makes me feel so stupid – there was an ITMA show on, and the saying was ‘ee, I’ll ‘ave to ask me dad’ in a Northern accent [laughing] and I thought he was kidding me, and that’s what I said [laughing]. Well he didn’t listen to our shows of course, he’d be listening to Jack Benny or Bob Hope or something, and he said ‘well okay then’ [laughing] ‘okay Betty, you ask your dad’ [laughing] ‘if he says, if he says yes’ [laughing]. So anyway I asked my dad and he said ‘no I don’t think that’s a good idea, I think you should just get engaged’, so the next night when Fred called me I said ‘no dad says I can’t get married, but we could get engaged’. ‘No’ he said, ‘I don’t wanna leave this country ‘til I’m – ‘til you’re with me, and you’re married to me’, so [laughing] I said ‘oh alright then, where – ‘ [laughing] how silly now I think about [laughing] so silly, and I, so I said ‘oh well alright then, when?’. Well this was just after VE Day, he said ‘June the 9th’ [pause] I said ‘gosh that’s, that’s awfully quickly, I don’t know if I can do that, because’ I said ‘you do a lot of investigating of girls and I’d have to go through that and that takes a long time’. ‘No’ he said, ‘it’s alright because my, my commanding officer is a, married to a WAAF and he knows what to do and he can just go straight through to your WAAF officer and he will know exactly your character’ etcetera, etcetera, and, um, ‘there’ll be no problem’. So I said ‘ohh, okay, June the 9th it is’, he said ‘besides it’s my birthday and [laughing, unclear] on my birthday’, so, that’s what happened.
HH: So where did you get married?
BT: In Saint Mary’s church, in the local church in, in Aylesbury, and we had neighbours helping us, and my c-, my warrant officer, he, uh, booked a hotel in London for a couple of nights, and we had all sorts of volunteers for sandwiches because it was very difficult [emphasis] to get things, and the girl across the road, was a Belgian girl married to a British tommy, and she had come over and she was the same size as me. She still had her, her wedding gown, and she said ‘you can borrow my wedding dress’, I said ‘well I want to be married in uniform’ – my father wouldn’t let me, but I wanted to be married, but he said ‘no you’re not, you only get married once and I want you to be married in white’ so –
HH: You were married in white.
BT: - I was married in white, yup. And we had a nice, quite a nice wedding and reception at mummy’s house. We were squashed but it was alright, we had fun. But then, we went on the train, to London to the hotel that my warrant officer had booked for us. As a matter of fact he sat in the same carriage as us, and my husband said he was quite upset, he kept staring at me like, staring at him, like ‘you’d better look after that girl’ [laughs]. Oh well, yes.
HH: And then did he depart soon after that for the Far East?
BT: Yes, yes, about, about two weeks. No - I don’t know that it was two weeks, it could have been – it could have been less, I don’t know, but it was a quick, quick time. I know I met him a couple of times in Norwich because he was going, and I went up there quickly to see him before, before he left, and that was it and I didn’t see him again until the following February.
HH: And what happened then?
BT: Well, what happened then? I went over on the Queen Mary, I went down to um, what was the name of the place… was it Innsworth? Think it was Innsworth, for about four or five days, waiting to go on the boat, and they did an FFI (Free From Infection, as you know) with everybody, and those of us who were in the We- couldn’t give a darn about that we were used to that monthly you know, but some of these poor girls had never had anything like that done to them and, they didn’t like it at all, and some of them had babies. But, um, we got on the Queen Mary and so many days later we arrived in New York, and I had said to my husband, ‘if you’re not in New York to meet me, I’m not going to get – I’m going to get a boat back, I’ve got enough money, I’m going to get a boat back’, and he said ‘well I’ve been called up to go to spring training down to Texas because he was with, being picked for the Dodgers, Pat Derry [?] had signed him up for spring training to see, along with many others, I might add – because he played baseball here with the American Air Force, and he said ‘so I don’t know if I can’, I said ‘well if you’re not there I’m not, I’m going, going home’, so anyway he said he would be there no matter what. So I wasn’t ever really sure. And then they were calling over the tannoy ‘would Betty Ethel Turner please come to dockside’, well my name isn’t Betty Ethel Turner, it’s Betty May Turner, and we were in alphabetical order in this cabin – we even had a Major Turnipseed’s [?] wife, in there [unclear, laughs], anyway, um, we all helped Betty Ethel Turner get things in her case, but she wasn’t expecting to go, they were going to take the girls that weren’t being met to their own organisations, and anyway - so I, and I was a bit disappointed when Betty Ethel went, but anyway about ten minutes later they called out ‘will Betty May [emphasis] Turner please report to dockside’ and everybody helps me get all my stuff together. So I’m walking down the gangplank, and here’s poor Betty Ethel Turner coming back with her bag – ‘they tried to give me to your husband’ [laughing], I can’t tell you how he said [pause] but he said ‘that is not my wife!’ and he [unclear, laughing, possibly ‘worried him to death’].
HH: So you were reunited – you were reunited?
BT: So he was very relieved when I came down the pla – in fact he jumped the barrier, he shouldn’t have done of course but he did. And they all looked so different, they were in zoot suits and those fedora type hats, you know, so [emphasis] different. Yes.
HH: And how long did you spend in the States then?
BT: Twenty-four years.
HH: Where were you living?
BT: Detroit, Michigan.
HH: And how did, how did you feel about leaving and going to live in the States?
BT: I didn’t – I was unhappy leaving my family of course, but really it was excitement for me and if you’ve been away from home living since you were seventeen, I, by that time, well I spent my 21st birthday in the mid-Atlantic, on the Queen Mary, that was my 21st birthday. That’s why I was glad my dad said yes I could get married - well, they didn’t really agree but they agreed to in the end, because they could stop me up to twenty-one, they could have stopped me, if they’d really wanted to. But, I had a good life out there, but he didn’t make, he didn’t make the baseball team and he came back four weeks later, so I, when I went I was totally alone with strangers, and it was, it was strange, but, you know, after, after he came back we lived with his parents while [emphasis] we built our own house in the next block. And then of course I had my girls, and I belonged to the Daughters of the British Empire out there, which is an organisation as, as you probably know, and um, and then it all sort of went – mmm, after twenty four years I suppose it would have been, I, in nine- in the year before I bought him a set of golf clubs for Christmas [laughs], which I never should have done I suppose really, I never saw him again he was on the golf course – well that’s just a, a, you know , a thumbnail story.
HH: So you just came back, you just decided to come back?
BT: Well Donna had come back here, my oldest daughter, we sent her over to see nan and grandad as a, as a graduation present when she was eighteen, now she was older than I was when I left home, oh, when I left home the first time, and so it seemed ok but I did miss her terribly. And then of course this one was going, and one thing and another and I thought [sighs] ‘can’t be doing with this’, and um he, more or less agreed to it of course. He didn’t remarry, I didn’t remarry, I did have a partner for many years, here, but um, after I’d been here a while.
HH: But you’ve done this amazing thing to reassemble your family near Aylesbury.
BT: Well, part of it, yes. But it w – my mother was dead against divorce, they thought it was terrible my getting a divorce, but my mother was ill for a while and I would go over every day, take her a – do the house cleaning and, and look after her, and when she went into hospital she didn’t come out again – she was ninety-odd mind you, ninety, ‘bout ninety-four actually I figured. And um, then my father, and she said to me ‘everything happens for the best you know, because’ she said ‘what would we have done’. And then of course dad became ill, and I had him here for two years before he went to hospital for only just a few days and died, and he was ninety-seven when he died.
HH: So you’ve got longevity in your family.
BT: Well, I, I don’t know I don’t think so – well, so far it’s been long, but, I do have, um, I do have cancer. So I, you know, you never know do you? No.
HH: But it’s been in more recent years, Betty, that you have taken to producing these really very beautiful artworks about your memories of the WAAF – tell us about that.
BT: Well, well, when you’re alone more than anything – because I really didn’t start, um, well, Terry wa – did I do it while Terry was alive?
SM: Not so much.
BT: Not a lot, did I? I would – I know, it was a Christmas, he said ‘what d’you want for Christmas?’ and I said ‘I really would love some watercolours for Christmas’, and I’ve got a box of watercolours that he bought me for Christmas, with brushes, and I started, and I didn’t do very much at first, not at first, and then I – he was poorly, and I nursed him for about six years before he died, and all that time that he was poorly, I was able to sit and do my painting and stuff. And I did a lot of it then, quite a lot of it, and then after he died, and he’s been gone six years – so it’s been about twelve years that I’ve done the painting.
HH: And now, you could’ve chosen all kinds of subjects to paint, but you chose something quite specific, why?
BT: I chose, because I could see them. I could see the girls that I’ve painted. I would get, I would get a book and look at some, one or two, that I’ve painted with a plane in it possibly I’ve had to copy, because I wasn’t on an aerodrome, and they were, and I wanted to recognise them as well, you know, but others I’ve just remembered when we were, for instance, cleaning our, cleaning our irons in the dirty – everybody says we had lovely hot water, we never [emphasis] had lovely hot water, by the re- time the rest of us were coming out of the cook house that water would be ho-, warm, lukewarm and greasy, the grease would be floating on the top, but we still had to rinse them you know. What else would we do? Well we had, nowhere to, nowhere to wash the [unclear], anyway – and so that’s where I’ve done most of my art. Or if somebody call– once or twice somebody’s called up ‘Betty would you do one with so-and-so’, um, ‘I’d like one, I’d like a birthday card for my, for my mother, she’s going to be ninety’ or something ‘and I want - and she was in the WAAF and I want you to do a postcard or a birthday card for her’, so I would do one, one of those, and te- and Shelley my daughter, bless her, she copies them, well not copies them, yes she’s got a copier, and I, so I try and keep the originals and the copies, and the copies go. And that’s what the Association does when I do a card, I send them a copy and they keep it.
HH: In your view, do you think that the WAAFs have received the recognition that they deserve in the years since World War 2, for what they did?
BT: Absolutely not, no, that’s a - that’s a real sore point with me. I could go into the town for Memorial Day and the men, the - ‘come on, come on, let’s line up’, and then I’m there, and I even have my tie and my blue shirt and my blazer with a, with my medal even, but they w-, they wouldn’t bring me to the front. The men come to the front, and you, you know, sort of thing, but it’s like that all the time. And the memorial in London, well. Those coats on a hook. I haven’t seen it, I’ve seen it in a photograph, but I haven’t – I don’t go up to London, I’m not in a fit state to go up to London really, I s’pose I could go, I could persevere and go, make up my mind I’m going, I would love to see the Bomber Command memorial thing up there, I think that must be wonderful – but it’s just the bomber boys isn’t it, the boys that flew, who were absolutely wonderful I think, but everybody else behind those boys were wonderful too, weren’t they?
Other: Indeed.
BT: And everybody - I go to museums and it’s all planes and where are the WAAF? They were there. But you don’t get any recognition at all. Very seldom anyway. The films – you see films of the boys and the planes, but very few WAAF. It might be a love story so they have to put a WAAF in it.
HH: I was going to say -
BT: And she’s an officer’s [unclear] –
HH: - it seems to me that that seems, you know, if you look at, films and things since the war that’s been the way in which WAAFs have tended to be portrayed is as partners or as the love interest rather than as, you know, serious participants in the war effort.
BT: Yes. That’s right, yes, yes. That’s right.
SM: Can I say something here? The one thing that I notice going to the WAAF reunions is the amazing variety of jobs that they had, that the WAAF had during the war. The engine fitters, the plane deliverers, there are so many other things that they did that were men’s jobs, and these little ladies who looked as though they couldn’t blow a feather away, were just fantastic. I was just full of admiration for them, and that isn’t recognised enough.
BT: That’s right. That one woman that we were talking – one lady that sat next to you – what did she do, Shelley?
SM: She was a Stirling engine fitter.
BT: A Stirling engine fitter.
Shelly: And she was four-foot-nothing.
BT: [laughing] Now she’s a four-foot-nothing.
HH: Do you think that that started during the war though? In the sense that there was a certain ambiguity to the role that women were playing, I mean, it was obviously a necessary role to release um, men to take part in front line duty, and especially in Bomber Command with the attrition rate being quite high, um, but there was still nevertheless an ambivalence as to whether women should be playing that role.
BT: Oh yes, oh yes.
HH: Did you feel that, that at the time?
BT: Where I was stationed, not so much, because there were quite a few WAAF there and the men, they would not be on the set as much as we would be, but they would be charging the batteries and all sorts of things like that you know, and you – the men that were there a lot of times were photographers and guards, that – we would be teased, as WAAF, I mean they would say ‘go fetch something’ and it wasn’t there or it- ‘what the heck do you want’ you know, no, you got used to that sort of thing. Or if they had a joke, oh, ‘tell Betty, she’ll laugh’, you know, and I’d laugh but I wouldn’t know what they were talking about sometimes, hadn’t a clue [laughs], very innocent, sort of, you know, but um, it was – but I’ve noticed it a lot more since the last, oh I don’t know, I don’t think when I was in the states that it ever came up, because they didn’t know what WAAF were in the – I did have some friends that were in the WAAF though that married Americans, ‘cause we had this club where quite a few English girls and quite a few of them were in the WAAF, or several of them were in the WAAF anyway, because they were working with Americans some of them, on camp, and they, they were closely working with them and became friendly, very friendly, some of them. But on the whole it was since I’ve been here I notice the, the, sort of - Oh, if I told people, and I don’t do it very often, I’ve done it more lately than I ever have in my life, I’ve said I was in the WAAF and they say ‘oh were you? What did you do?’ and I’d tell them, ‘oooh’, you know, the minute you mention Bletchley Park that’s the only way you’ll get any notice, because that’s had publicity, and, you know, that sort of thing. I don’t know. But I do wish we had – on one of my friends, as a matter of fact my best friend, Jane, she thought that we’ve got to have a memorial up at the Arboretum, we’ve got to have something, and she started, and she planned it, and it was taken out of her hands by a few people in the Association, and her village, and it was built not the way she wanted it to be built, and she was warned that it wouldn’t last this particular way these people were going to do it, and it just broke her heart and even now we’ve got to spend a lot of money now getting it cleaned up and straightened up the way – actually, it would be better to take it down and start all over again, the way Jane wanted it done, it’s been so sad and we’re spending too much money on it, keeping it clean. And one thing and another, and that’s the only one we’ve got, that I know of, there, and that’s at the Arboretum, up your way, isn’t it?
HH: It’s Staffordshire isn’t it? Alrewas.
BT: Yeah. It’s quite a lovely place, but terribly disappointing that particular – so it’s good to have something, isn’t it?
HH: And I hope, very much, that you will approve of what we plan to do in terms of commemorating the WAAFs’ contribution in the new Bomber Command centre.
BT: I hope so. And I wish you the very best of luck in getting it done. I know that I won’t be alive to see it, but I shall hope that my family will go and see it.
HH: Well Betty thank you very much for that interview [telephone rings]
BT: Oh sorry, I’ll turn it -
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Betty TurnerSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber CommandGreat Britain. Women's Auxiliary Air ForceDescriptionAn account of the resourceBetty Turner served in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force with Bomber Command at 92 Group Headquarters, Winslow, and later at RAF Great Massingham, reaching the rank of leading aircraftswoman. She recounts living in chilly stables, being quite bored by Morse code, and the life-long bond that was forged between her and other Women’s Auxiliary Air Force members. She married an American whom she met during the war and they lived together in the United States for 24 years. After their divorce she settled close to her family in Aylesbury in the United Kingdom, where she had grown up. Betty Turner has been painting images from her days in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force for twelve years because the memories of her service remain so vivid; some have been used for the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force Association annual Christmas card.CreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceHeather HughesPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceChristina BrownHeather HughesFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:50:39 audio recordingIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextATurnerB150602DateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-06-02LanguageA language of the resourceengSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Great BritainEngland--BuckinghamshireEngland--NorfolkUnited StatesNew York (State)--New YorkRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.TypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber Commandarts and craftsentertainmentground personnellove and romanceMorse-keyed wireless telegraphyRAF Great MassinghamWomen’s Auxiliary Air Forcehttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/6/12/PFarmerV1504.2.jpg625375e7381c1ad8b2336cded3001ecahttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/6/12/AFarmerV150730.2.mp3f22333b64a7968ac6e2a03f690f60d8aDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceFarmer, VicVictor FarmerV R FarmerRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.DescriptionAn account of the resourceOne oral history interview with Vic Farmer, a navigator with 550 Squadron. The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.DateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-07-30IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextFarmer, VTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentVF: I’m now coming up to age ninety two. I am the last member of my crew, of the Bomber Command in Bomber Command Number 1 Group flying with 550 squadron flying out of North Killingholme.
MJ: And your name is?
VF: And of course my name is Vic Farmer and I flew, I joined the RAF as soon as I reasonably could. I wanted to join when I was seventeen but my parents would not give their consent. However, when I was eighteen, shortly after, I volunteered for aircrew. I wanted to be a pilot but I’m afraid when the, in the training that followed the ground course I just couldn’t fly a plane so not to waste, waste my abilities they put me to be a navigator. That meant going abroad for training and I trained in South Africa. At East London and Queenstown in South Africa. Came back to this country and did further training as a navigator in the, in our climate here in this country and eventually went on to be crewed up.
I remember shall we say being approached by an Australian pilot. A young Australian pilot. He was putting together a crew but to his own specific formula. He wanted two Australians, two Canadians and two Brits. So the two Canadians were gunners, a bomb aimer and the pilot they were Australians, the wireless operator and myself - we were the Brits. These are part of his formula – no officers. So we began our training together first on twin engine Wellingtons then on Halifaxes and on Lancasters.
But on the way we had problems. My pilot, because of the policy of the Australian government was commissioned and then of course he had what we call women, a woman problem and a pilot with a woman problem was dead. Was, shall we say, not a very good thing. So on our training he actually crash landed us in a Halifax. We were lucky the engines practically fell off red hot but fortunately we didn’t go up in flames. If we had I would probably not be here. So that was, we then refused to fly with him - the crew. And I had to speak up for the crew and eventually they, our plea was accepted and we waited to be taken over by another pilot.
Along came a Flying Officer Thomas. He was over thirty. He had a paunch and he had a sort of an eye twitch and I thought my goodness talk about, shall we say, out of the frying pan in to the fire. But however he proved to be an excellent Bomber Command pilot. He had been a flying instructor and he was the only commissioned person in the crew so he had us all organised together and to work as a crew and we went on to fly with him and we went to 550 squadron which had only been formed, in 19, late 1943 and we actually flew on D-Day itself. Well not quite on D-Day itself. It was twenty five minutes past midnight on the 7th of June.
And we were working extremely hard because we were flying day and, and night during our tour and we did a whole range of targets but many of them were to, how shall I put it, made travelling conditions for German support to the D-Day, for our front shall we say very difficult so they could not bring up their reinforcements. Our first attack was on, so they could not attack us, on [inaudible], shall we say - a railway marshalling yard, marshalling yard just outside Paris.
So we flew as I say at night at first and then by day and night so my actual flying operationally was only for just over three months from the 6th of June until about the, shall we say mid-September.
We always flew together. I flew thirty times with my pilot whose name, we always called the Skip. We never called him any other name. In fact I didn’t know his first name until just a couple of years ago. So he was always known as Skip and shall we say he, I am sure, saved us. I’m sure I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for his skill and to a certain extent our good fortune.
He, we were being stalked by a German night fighter and the manoeuvre at that time was for the gunners to call out ‘corkscrew’ port or maybe starboard depending on which way we were being stalked by a German night fighter. And we went down to port but of course the night, the German night fighter at that time knew of our manoeuvre and just hung there and waited until we went down and then turned and came up again and there we were, there they were waiting for us. But our pilot didn’t do that. Instead he went down to port and we kept going and we, if you like flew a circle which the plane at which was angled to the, to the ground below and about two minutes later he’d turned and gone down and came up again and two minutes or so later we were back where we started but the night fighter had been put off. We never saw him again. And we got back home.
I think on the next occasion which really sticks in my mind that we did a daylight raid lasting nearly eight hours down to Bordeaux to bomb oil installations to keep the German forces short of oil. But the, when we were first in and were flying at a height of eight or nine thousand feet and we were opposed by predicted flak. In other words the people had to work out where we were going to be and at what height and set their guns and such but our Skipper just took us on the same direction, the same speed and we dropped our bombs but what he had done he had slowly increased our height so from the prediction being made, the guns firing and the time taken for the shells to explode we were about, about a hundred feet higher. We got a lot of damage on the under surface of our plane but nothing serious. That took courage to do that. Most people would have tried to dive out of it and would, in so doing would probably dive into the flak and so and possibly be shot down.
But those are the two occasions. Another occasion we had lost a wing commander and a new man had come in and I think he wasn’t very well liked. He had the idea he gave that he came from a second class public school and shall we say rather talked down to people but he chose to fly with our crew to go Douai to bomb, once again, railway marshalling yards but at this time we had six Lancasters in formation and the wing commander flying in the lead of the first of three and shall we say there was I, a flight sergeant, with him sort of nagging at me cause he didn’t think I was doing a good job but we did get to Beachy Head on time, set off for France, arrived over the French coast in the right place, on time and when we came to do a turn it had to be a large turn because we were flying ahead of the, of the Bomber stream where they were expecting to follow us to well and make a well and truly coordinated attack but halfway through the turn the bomber, bomb aimer said, “I can see the target. “ But I said to the wing commander we haven’t completed our turn. He says, “Take over bomb aimer”. So the bomb aimer took over and guided us to another French town about thirty or forty miles away but the whole bomber stream took no notice of following us and went on to bomb the right target.
Once he’d found he’d bombed the wrong target the wing commander took this formation of six Lancasters to fly around North France, Northern France with a very, very high density of anti-aircraft guns and to look at the target we should have hit and to circle around and see what we should have done and took us then back home. And meanwhile I had logged everything. I had my chart but the, so I was quite happy that I had in a sense I’d done my job but had been ignored by the person making the decisions. So when we got landed, got home I went in to do for briefing I’d got my log and my chart which were taken from me but before we went in his hand went to my collar pulled me back and said this is what to say and to this day the squadron records record that the Pathfinders were late putting down their, their flares and that the visibility was not very, very good but it was good enough for the bomb aimer to see the wrong target so I don’t see how that really fits. However that’s, that’s what happened. So what does a flight sergeant say to a wing commander anyway when he knows he’s making a mess up. So I had to suffer that.
However, we went on and our pilot got us through our tour and immediately after the tour I was commissioned and I went from on from there and of course our crew broke up and went different ways. We had a strong link with each other. A very, very strong link because we were going to either, shall we say, die or live depending on our own particular skills in, in in the crew.
But the crew broke up and I was commissioned and went on to become a staff navigator. Being a staff navigator was one cent higher than being a normal ordinary navigator course. I went and took that course at Shawbury when they were, shall we say, were pioneering polar flying at the time. And after that I became a flying instructor and I had one rather particular task was, just after the war had finished prisoners of war were coming back. Many of them were part of the permanent RAF and they had to be brought up to date with navigation which had taken great strides during the war using radar equipment in particular. Generally speaking the people were very good because they were often a higher rank than me but there was one person, he was a squadron leader and he came in to my class and while I was lecturing he put his legs up and read a novel. I thought if this is what permanent people in the RAF are like I don’t want to know them so when the time came for me to leave the RAF I was offered to stay in a bit longer and consider a permanent commission. Remembering that person indeed certainly clouded my decision not to stay in the RAF.
So I came out to be a civilian with no job, no career of any note to, to, to go back into civilian life. So having been an instructor I thought it wasn’t much of a step to go along and become a school teacher. Instead of instructing shall we say adults I would probably teach young people to help form their lives for the future and so I did and after a very miserable start I became quite competent and eventually ended up as the last eighteen years of my teaching life as a head, Headmaster of a primary school. Now much of my success in that I always feel was my life in the RAF and my special time on operational flying because they had taught me as a young man not to be a middle class prig but to accept people as they are and that helped me in my career because I had an awful lot of contacts with teachers and parents as adults as well as with children. So I always look back upon my air force career and my time in Bomber Command as being, if you like the things that formed me as a person. I grew up very quickly joining the RAF at the age of eighteen.
And that’s virtually what I did. So I’ve been retired from teaching now for over thirty years. I still go back to my [?] school and the youngsters there questioned me about my life, shall we say as a child, in my wartime including my time in the RAF, my time teaching and retirement. And of course so many changes have taken place that this has become a part of their, if you like, history course to be able to talk to somebody. But I don’t just go along and talk to them and tell them. They ask me questions so I have to be prepared just to answer any questions they put to me.
Well here I am now living on my own. My wife died nearly eighteen years ago so I look back on my life in the RAF and Bomber Command with rather great satisfaction if you like. It has really made me as a person.
I do feel about Bomber Command which I am proud to have served my country flying in Bomber Command but I do feel it has had a sad history just after the war. It was influential in a very, very strong way of winning the war and it also it helped us not to lose the war ‘cause I don’t think, I think the bomb - shall we say the dam busters did a wonderful job but I think the most influential raid made by Bomber Command was to Peenemunde when they bombed the research for the German V weapons. V1 the buzz bombs to the V2, the rockets and equally they were shall we say pioneering a very long range gun but when the, shall we say this was the, the place, Peenemunde where the Germans were doing all their research and putting into practice what they thought would win the war. That did actually affect, but I think it so messed up the German, the German shall we say research that there was a delay in the V1s and the V2 weapons being used against this country and nor were they put in numbers that the Germans had anticipated they would use and as the flying bombs came, began to, to fly their unmanned bomb, flying bomb, I think about ten days after, about ten days if memory serves me after the, the invasion of Europe. The, if the German programme had gone as expected they would started four or five months earlier and then they could have put us out of the war before we, before we invaded in Normandy. That could have, that could really have happened. And once the bomb, once the V weapons were being used I can recall many of my operations were against V weapon bomb sites in storage centres. That was part of the programme of Bomber Command in June, July.
I also feel that the, whereas Fighter Command flew a wonderful defensive war and kept us from, shall we say, losing the war, they did it in a defensive way, in a sense I do feel Bomber Command by its aggressive wage of, waging of war did save us from defeat at, at the hands of the V weapons.
But when I go back to my old school and children ask me about what I did in the war. They ask the questions, I give the answers. And one of the questions which always comes up as different group of children I see, meet, each year is was it right for you to kill civilians? Well the answer to that? I did what I was told. I couldn’t choose what I, targets I would take on ‘cause civilians might be killed. That’s one thing. The second thing is they didn’t understand that all wars civilians always suffer anyway but also I wasn’t we were not intent on killing civilians as such. What we were doing at Bomber Command, we were helping to fight a war which we knew that the German people were being led astray to believe that they, they were the master race. That they were superior to everybody. Had, had we lost the war what would the German victors have done to us? Would they allow us as being quite closely related to you might say, in race, to Germany allow us to be also part of that attitude that we were superior to other races. And so that we were really fighting not the people but a very wrong idea of the way the world should be run.
And I say this to the youngsters who, very often I’m talking to a class which is about seventy eight percent children with a background from, from the, that is come from where we might perhaps have called them black children as against white and I would say to them, you are equal in our country and in the sight of God to anybody. You are not an inferior race which you would have been if the Germans had won the war. So you make up your own mind whether killing civilians on the way has ensured, if you like - your future. It’s very difficult to get over, over to the youngsters aged eleven that conception. But I don’t tell them whether I did right or wrong I tell them the circumstances and leave them to make up their own mind.
Now as, as after the war I didn’t, people knew that I had flown in the RAF but I would always hesitate to say I flew in Bomber Command. There were a whole, shall we say generation who grew up thinking that we were civilian killers. I think that has passed now and they realise that the numbers lost, the lives that were lost in Bomber Command, over fifty five thousand people. That was nearly half, nearly fifty percent of people who flew in Bomber Command what a great sacrifice that people flying in Bomber Command made for our victory and have been neglected for so many years.
I suppose I look upon myself - I did nothing heroic. Shall we say I didn’t have, have to bail out? I didn’t, I flew my time in much of the same aircraft on a very little known squadron but at last it has been our, our work and sacrifice has been acknowledged and it was the Bomber Command memorial in, near, it’s at Piccadilly. That is a wonderful memorial and I was there when the Queen opened it in the year of the Olympic Games wasn’t it? And I was privileged to be there and on that occasion the whole royal family were there as well and that was the time when, when final acknowledgement was of Bomber Command was really appreciated.
I’m proud that I flew in Bomber Command so I’m proud of my service in the RAF but just to think I served in the RAF for four and a half years and in just over three months I flew operationally. Makes you think doesn’t it? That the rest of the time I was either in training or helping to train others. But I flew in Bomber Command and I say, I look back, aged nearly ninety two with a great deal of satisfaction but I was one of the many. Now Bomber Command has been accepted for what it really was and did. So many people have died who have never known that Bomber Command was going to be, at last, accepted. I’m the last of my crew to, to be alive and some of those particularly the two Canadians they have died without ever knowing that what they did flying in Bomber Command was, shall we say, fully recognised. I think that’s rather sad but because I’m still alive today I have, I have a bit of notoriety personally for, because I’m still alive. So many other people did what I did and did it better in their time but they have died. I’m still alive. And because there is a scarcity of people who like me are still alive we now have a little bit of notoriety, shall we say, at last.
And I’m also glad that the new, the new Bomber Command in Lincolnshire, the Bomber Command memorial there which is being set up at this time, not yet completely functional. But I’m glad it’s that because whereas the, shall we say the monument there in London, Piccadilly is made of stone - is wonderful. It’s quite emotional to go and see it but it does nothing. It doesn’t move. It just helps the mind remember but to be able to be, help the new Lincolnshire project which is more than just is, is somewhere where people can go and do and take part and look at the archives and I’m so glad to be able to help in that in my own little way.
MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre I’d like to thank Vic Farmers. Navigator?
VF: Navigator.
MJ: Navigator, for his interview at his home in Oxted, the date of the 13th of July 2015. Thank you very much.
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Vic FarmerSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber CommandCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceHeather HughesPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-09-14ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceJulie WilliamsHeather HughesFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:34:46 audio recordingLanguageA language of the resourceengIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAFarmerV150730DescriptionAn account of the resourceVic Farmer volunteered for the Royal Air Force at eighteen and trained as a navigator in South Africa. He describes his experiences of crewing up and serving in 550 squadron, RAF North Killingholme. He saw action on D-Day, and participated in further operations to bomb Paris marshalling yards and Bordeaux. He recalls an incident on an operation when he was outranked and as a result the wrong target was hit. He was commissioned and after further navigator training at RAF Shawbury, became an instructor. After the war, he became a teacher and eventually the head of a primary school. He talks of his feelings about Bomber Command and how veterans have been treated.Spatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.France--Bordeaux (Aquitaine)France--ParisGreat BritainEngland--LincolnshireEngland--OxfordshireSouth AfricaFranceRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.TypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1944-06-07550 Squadronaircrewbombingcrewing upnavigatorNormandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)perception of bombing warRAF North KillingholmeRAF Shawburyhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/7/13/ADerringtonAP150715-01.1.mp32af1448baa606754816904ab2f0786c3Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceDerrington, Arnold PearceArnold Pearce DerringtonArnold P DerringtonArnold DerringtonA P DerringtonA DerringtonDescriptionAn account of the resourceTwo oral history interviews with Dr Arnold Pearce Derrington DFC (- 2016, 187333 Royal Air Force), a navigator with 462 and 466 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextDerrington, APDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-07-15PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentCB: My name is Chris Brockbank and I am conducting an interview with Doctor Arnold Pierce Derrington and we are in his house in Cornwall and we are going to talk about his experiences over the years in the RAF but starting off in his early days and then after the war with his civilian career. Today is the 14th July 2015 and I’m asking Derry to start in the early days. What was your background Derry and how did all of that progress?
DD: Well I was a child in Devon. I came to Cornwall at the age of eighteen months to live at St Erth. That’s still my model village and I was there until about 1930 and the family had grown by then and we moved to Marazion near St Michael’s Mount and I had my childhood days there. Very happy memories of Marazion and I still see friends from there and still hear from there.
I had a friend living nearby in a place called [?] and he was a navigator too. He’d been a clerk in an agricultural merchants and the, he went into the air force, and did a tour with Coastal Command and was posted to Rhodesia where he was an instructor. When he died eventually I spread his ashes from a lifeboat in Mounts Bay. But he and I were childhood friends. We were little rogues really because his father was a policeman and the father was very incensed sometimes. Some man came to him and said someone’s put water in the petrol of my motor tank in the tank the petrol tank of my motorbike and it turned out that we two boys had done it. Very embarrassing for the policemen. That boy’s sister is still alive. She visits me occasionally.
And at Marazion I was at the county school at Penzance and never dreamed I’d be flying. I saw Alan Cobham’s Air Circus. I’ve got his little notebook here. It’s in that blue container there. Do you have it? Alan Cobham’s book. That’s it. And I have a very dear friend I haven’t seen for seventy seven years. I went to that air display with his parents. And that was an air display that flew around with trailers behind the planes saying where the display was taking place and we were talking recently about that actual airfield which is between Marazion and Haile and my mother said, ‘Don’t you dare go up flying’ and I was offered a free flight and I did say no but within ten years I’d done a tour and got a DFC. It’s amazing how things go on isn’t it?
Now, where do we go from there now? I was at Marazion in the LDV or Home Guard and when I went to college at Exeter I decided to join the LDV there. And after a month or so the University Air Squadron was opening up in Exeter and I joined that and I was at St Luke’s, Exeter which was a teacher training place and until the last two or three years there were a few of us around but I’m the last one of them still going strong. One of the chaps Archie Smith from St Austell was on the county council with my wife. She was a councillor and had a very good career about it. She ended up with an MBE.
Well I went on then to University Air Squadron from this Home Guard lot there and I’ve even got a greeting telegram somewhere from a relation congratulating me on joining this University Air Squadron. I could dig that out if you want to see a picture of it I expect.
And well it was good training. We had a, a, a commanding officer called Searle who was the head of the physics department at Exeter and he had an adjutant called Crosscut and the main chap we met from an interesting flying point of view had the Croix de Guerre. He was a rear gunner. He was badly scarred.
And from the University Air Squadron I was attested in Weston Super Mare in June 1942 and that same month I joined the air force at Lords Cricket Ground. Our first payday, first money I’d earned in my life cause having been University Air Squadron I was a leading aircraftsmen and we were very superior indeed to the AC plonks. They only got a half a crown a day. And after a short time at Lords I was posted to Manchester to await overseas posting but they discovered that I needed corrective goggles so I was sent down to Brighton Aircrew Dispersal Wing, ACDW and had a very happy time there staying in a huge great hotel, sleeping on rough beds at the Hotel Metropole. And there was another one The Grand there was well and the [air?] parade still took place in those days and we saw some of the rather shaky soldiers who came back from there.
And from ACDW I was posted to grading school Ansty near Coventry. I was made into, well I did fly in a Tiger Moth but I was made into as a navigator and I’m very glad I was because it kept me going during the very horrible times that we were doing operations. I had my head down getting on with the job. I did look out a time or two but it was so horrific I got back to my base very soon and from the grading school I went to Blackpool waiting for overseas posting and from Liverpool I sailed to South Africa. It wasn’t straightforward because we were afraid of the submarines that might have damaged us so we went across the coast to America and then back again to freestone, Freetown and then from Freetown down around the Cape to Durban. We didn’t get off the boat at all. I was on gun duty on oerlikons.
When we got to Durban we went to a transit camp called Clairwood and there we were thrown an empty linen case and told to stuff it with grass because that would be our palliasse bed and the toilets, they were like huge great egg racks. I think there was accommodation for about eighty. And they fed us very well. It was very nice. The novelty of South Africa was interesting indeed. I met very interesting people there who worked in the Red Shield Club and they invited us into their homes and there was one family called Thornton who had a son same age as myself training as a doctor. I’ve heard from him right until recently when he died. And when I moved away from East London to Durban, Durban to East London we did some training in the air force work there. I went up there to do night flying at a place called Aliwal North and that was a place outside the town of Queenstown. It was a very strange volcanic rock there with a big flat top called [?] and there was [?] Association and I was a member of that for a long time and correspondence kept on.
And I met a dear man who was flying beside me called Harry Dunn. Because my name came in the alphabet first before his I was graded as first navigator he was graded as second navigator. And well I did turn out to be a better one than he did because I came top of the course. But Harry came to me when we went to our next stage up at Queenstown almost in tears. He said, “My maths is no good at all. Will you coach me?” Harry was out with the girls and drinking and didn’t bother at all really. He was good company but very happy go lucky.
And well we both got through and he came back with me on the same troopship back through Tufik (?)in the Red Sea. And the Germans were still in Italy and we had a lot of women and children on board who were being repatriated from India. They were service families. And they weren’t going to take any risks. When the Germans were clear, after a fortnight in Tufik we came back through the Mediterranean and home in time for Christmas 1943. And we were very popular because we brought back things which were normally rationed.
I bought a lovely Omega watch in East London for seven pounds ten shillings and well the same watch these days is nearly two thousand pounds. I lost that but that’s another story. I’ve bought another Omega since. I navigated on that one all the way through. They issued us with proper watches but I was delighted with my Omega. And I believe I had to hand wind it. I’d rather forgotten but recently I’ve seen the certificate when I bought the watch and apparently it had to be handed in to be oiled every year. Well mine never got any oil on it at all and I navigated on it pretty well. I was very happy with it. Delighted with my Omega.
Now where have we got? Oh yes. We were posted after Christmas leave, to West Freugh to acclimatise to British conditions and we flew up and down the Hebrides. Very fascinating indeed. I saw Iona which has a church which is the same pattern as our village church here in Pendeen - cruciform. And after going to this unit at West Freugh Harry got posted off to Transport Command and I was posted to Bomber Command. We were told, ‘write your wills. You won’t be here in six weeks time.’ I thought I’d find out how Harry’s going on. No reply. Wrote his parents – no reply. So I thought, well that’s it. I still have a lovely photo of him.
And I went on from West Freugh to, let’s see, OTU at Moreton in Marsh. Operational Training Unit. And that was on Wellingtons. In the meantime Harry had gone to Canada and became a fur merchant after the Transport Command experience as a fur merchant like his father was. And twenty or fifty years later on his conscience was pricking him because he had borrowed a book from an old aunt living near Bath and he came back to England from Canada to take this book to her. She was dead. Had an uncle ten miles away. Went to see him. He was dead too. So he thought I’m so far west I’ll go down Penzance and see old Derry. He didn’t tell me he was coming. I didn’t know where he was. I hadn’t forgotten him. And that day my wife and I were taking an old lady to hospital so we weren’t there in order to see him and Harry caught the train back to [?] to stay or he hoped to stay with a [sugar bidder[?]] there that he played rugby with before the war. When he got to the a [sugar bidder[?]] house he was out but the caretaker said, “Come on in and have a meal. He’ll be back in the morning.” and he was telling his tale of the book and going down to Penzance to see an old navigator friend. And that caretaker said was that navigator called Derry Derrington. He said, “How did you know that?” “I sat beside him on thirty one operations in bomber command. He was my navigator. I was his bomb aimer.” That dear boy has died since but his wife is still alive.
So after being at West Freugh Operational Training Unit there we crewed up, six of us, because we only had Wellingtons. We weren’t on a four engine outfit so we needed a flight engineer later and we gelled as a crew very quickly. Our pilot was an Australian called Les Evans, a dairy farmer’s son and he came from a place called Kingaroy in Queensland. And Les Evans was a very good pilot. He had been an instructor. We were all good chaps. We were never, there never was as good a crew as we are. Charlie will think so too. Charlie was friendly with another gunner called Dennis Cleaver and those two had crewed up together and they were looking for somebody to join and my pilot, Les Evans chose me for his navigator. I was delighted. Didn’t care whether he was Australian or Chinese or whatever he was. He was a dear old boy.
And after Les Evans, he and I were together, we chose the oldest wireless operator we could get and that was Tom Windsor. Tom was thirty one. We thought he was our grandfather [laughs] and Tom was a good old boy with the girls. One of the joking things which Charlie and I still talk about he used to say, “I’d like as many shillings,” and what that definitely meant we don’t quite know but we could guess all sorts of things. We were quite youngsters really in our early twenties. Tom was thirty one.
And well, we had Jonah who was in antiques with his brother. I was a trainee schoolmaster just qualified. Tom Windsor was a bookies clerk and Charlie and Dennis, the gunners, were both fitters and there were six of us. And we did OTU work at Moreton in the Marsh on Wellingtons and that was good. I saw my area where I live here from the air for the first time. I had been to see Alan Cobham’s Air Circus and did a flight - very limited indeed, but this was very wonderful to see our area from the, I suppose it was about ten thousand feet.
Well from the OTU we were posted to a Heavy Conversion Unit to get used to a four engine aircraft and we picked up an engineer who had been on the Queen Mary - Jock. Dear boy. Scotsman. A wee haggis we called him and he was good. In fact we had the most hair raising experience when we were doing a flight near the Isle Of Man because he had to change the petrol tanks over every so often in order to balance the aircraft, trim it up properly and he needed to go to the elsan and whether he was there longer then he should have done or what we don’t know but two engines cut out on us and I as navigator had to hold the escape hatch open, I did, ready for the crew to bailout and we got, Jonah, no Jock the engineer came back quickly, switched the right tanks over and she picked up and there we were again but we were very dicey indeed in those days.
Well we started our tour of operations. We were posted from our Heavy Conversion Unit to Driffield in Yorkshire just about twenty miles north of Hull. A lovely peacetime station. And the pilot did a second dickey, that is to give him experience. In the meantime we did all sorts of training to keep us well and fit. And on from there we started our own tour. And the first trip was an easy one cap griz nez. It was to do with army cooperation.
The second trip is one that was probably the most momentous in our lives. It was to a flying bomb site. Now on our back from leave we’d gone through London. We’d seen the headlines - Pilotless Aircraft over England and well those were the V1s and we didn’t know what that would mean and we were told this was a highly secret operation. We were not to talk to anybody about it at all and we were going to hit this target over, in daylight, at minute intervals. And as we were going down the country toward Beachy Head some silly bounder flying alongside us pressed the wrong button and what the crew were saying among themselves mentioned the name of the target. And that was [?] for the Germans. My pilot could see that every other aircraft was being shot down and he climbed an extra two thousand feet after Beachy Head [?] and did a shallow dive on the target. That gave us that bit more speed and we got there that split second before the minute was up but the flack came up and the Germans shot down one of their own fighters on our tail. Oh the gunners were quite screaming about it and we really felt we were getting acclimatised.
Well we got back from that we knew we’d got an aiming point. I’ve got a reconnaissance photograph of it here. It’s in my file which I’ll talk to you about later. That big fat file there is a list of all the things we did. All the, and I think it’s quite unique because the Australians were such a happy go lucky mob they didn’t collect them from us to shred them like most other people had done. I’ve got a complete unique set of operations and I know that we did well. We were good at wind finding and we did PFF support because we used to broadcast the wind that we found that was used by the master bomber.
Now where did we go from there? Well we did thirty one ops. Mainly over the Ruhr - Happy Valley, Flak Alley - all sorts of names for it and we got hit a time or two but we luckily came back and a lot of our dear chaps didn’t. I got back from a week’s leave and found seven complete crews wiped out. And they were dear boys. They were a jolly lot. They were mad as hatters. Motorbikes going around the mess, footprints on the ceiling. My speciality was doing forward rolls on the top of billiard tables or else in the fireplace. I’ve been told this later but I don’t remember it. And one chap flying with us he was the navigation leader he smoked his pipe through the side of the oxygen mask which was a little bit risky I think what do you think? Would you fancy doing that?
CB: No.
DD: No. No sensible person would I’m sure. In the middle of my tour I came home once and I thought I I’ll go up and see how my dad was getting on and I found him lying dead in the garden beside a bonfire. He’d had a stroke at the age of fifty four. That was, I was the oldest one of four children and my brother and I are the only two in our family now left but that was a great shock to me. It was the first dead person I’d seen and I was very saddened about it. I determined I wasn’t going to do any more flying when my tour was up although we were invited to be PFF people but I explained that I was the eldest of four and I couldn’t go back again and it wasn’t held against me. I was with a very fair lot.
The Aussies were a mad, happy lot. I got on wonderfully well with them. They were dears. And I never knew them do a bad, evil deed with anybody at all. They were wonderful. You’ll see pictures of some of them and some of the targets we had in my main logbook there.
Well we did get through our tour. I say the general thanksgiving every day for our creation, preservation. Preservation deeply underlined because we were preserved from all sorts of horrible things and we were able to save ourselves and our country by what we did. My Charlie, the rear gunner has a grandson I think it is who’s a Member of Parliament. There’s a photograph of him up there and I’ve got a letter of his in my general logbook here saying, ‘If I can do a much for the country as you chaps in Bomber Command then I shall feel I’ve done well.’ He’s a Doctor of Medicine as well as a Member of Parliament and I believe he had an increased majority at the last election. Charlie’s very proud of him. Charlie comes down this way on holiday occasionally. He was staying at a place called Mousehole not far from here with his, this man’s brother owns it and Charlie and his wife were down and we had some wonderful times together.
Earlier on I was talking about my friend in Canada who was, who met my bomb aimers crew over in Effingham near Goring and when this Harry came at one time he gave me my computer. Do you know it?
CB: I do.
AS: It’s a whizz wheel.
DD: A Dalton.
AS: A Dalton computer, yeah.
DD: A Dalton mark 3. While we were training as navigators this was our bible AP1234. There is an AP4567. I’ve seen it but I can’t get another copy. Anyhow, where I got this I don’t really remember but it was a precious book.
Well the tour was horrific. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world but I wouldn’t wish anyone else to have done it. And the crew were magnificent. We never had any quarrels or arguments. Les was a wonderful leader and well the mid gunner was a bit dicey sometimes but he was a jolly old boy and he loved singing too. We got on well. Talking about singing I’ve got a list of some of the ribald songs we sang.
We had lots of waiting around and because I live in the sticks down here in West Cornwall it took a long time to travel from Yorkshire to Cornwall. Twenty seven hours usually, stopping in London overnight very often, that I couldn’t come home on a forty eight hour pass. The time would be spent all with travelling and I passed my time away by doing this. This was my engagement present for my wife. This I did on an engineer’s bench in Air Force Station Driffield. The Song of Songs. In the back it says where it was done. Bound and written out by Arnold P Derrington between October and December 1944 at Driffield. I’m very proud of the title page of it. And I gave this to my wife and it will be my daughter’s eventually and this is the main title page. There.
CB: Wow.
DD: The Song of Songs. And I have bound a book before under ideal conditions but that was done on an engineer’s bench. The leatherwork as well and it’s very precious as you can imagine.
CB: What prompted you to do that?
DD: Pardon?
CB: What prompted you to do that?
DD: Well the language in it is very lovely and I felt it was a suitable engagement present for my wife.
[pause]
I’m wondering what is the next thing to talk about?
CB: Would you like to have a break?
DD: Hmmn?
CB: Would you like to have a break?
DD: No.
CB: Ok.
DD: No.
CB: So you said it was horrendous on operations so could you describe a typical operation that was hairy please?
DD: I got a diary which is totally illegal. There’s a black book over there somewhere. That’s it I think
[pause]
Yes diary of an RAF career after the 20th June ACRC etcetera. A tour of operations. An illegal document. Well its written, there’s quite a bit of detail there and I used it on one occasion for the people who are writing a history of our squadron. You see a book there, a big heavy book. That’s it. And my grandson Adam, who is going to have this stuff was so delighted he bought a copy for himself and, I was given a gratis copy and the two chaps who wrote it one is called Lax he was an ex air commodore and the other man there, a hyphenated name he was a chemistry professor very near where my daughter who lives in Australia. I’ve never met these two chaps but I’ve just had phone calls from them and with extracts from our diary and other things o sent them they got fifty references to us as a crew in that book. What’s it called again?
CB: To See the Dawn Again.
DD: To See the Dawn, yes. Well number, operation number eighteen. After much lighting, lightning the usual restless night I woke to a lovely morning. No signs of movement. Today is St Luke’s day. What happy memories it recalls. Possibly too many of us over the world - Canada, Africa, India, Gib West Indies and dear old England. Have I longed to, how I’ve longed to be on the cliffs today. Hanging around in the morning. FFI in the afternoon. Promise of pay then wait. Nothing doing. Draughts and roll call. Detailed for more, for move off tomorrow. I can’t read my own writing. Five weeks have elapsed since I heard from Helen and another five weeks will pass before I hear anything more. [?] I hadn’t done any operations that day.
CB: So this was a diary that you kept in addition to your logbook was it?
DD: Yes my logbooks are rather scruffy looking things.
CB: Yes I saw it on there.
DD: The South African one.
CB: Right.
DD: If I’d had it in England it would have had a rather nice blue cloth cover instead of a plain cover like that.
CB: Right ok. What prompted you to keep the diary?
DD: Oh just being [fussy?] and breaking regulations sort of thing.
[pause]
DD: I ought to be reading my own writing but I can’t.
CB: Well off the top of your head though what would you say was the most hair raising experience you had in a raid?
DD: Well even in the last raid we did. It was the 27th of December and we were going to the Ruhr and I’d had flu and I didn’t feel like flying at all. It wasn’t a case of LMF and it wasn’t a case of jitters it was a case of finishing near the end of the tour but I just did not feel well. My pilot Les said come on you’re alright you’ve always done well for us so far on previous occasions and off we went and I got taken sick and Jonah was sitting next to me the bomb aimer and I could tell him what to do when I couldn’t do it myself. And then I passed out and the heating failed at minus forty four. And we had to come down and I just vaguely knew what was happening. We had to come down to ten thousand feet because of the oxygen shortage. The heating had failed and the oxygen failed as well. And we had bombs being dropped by our own chaps up above and they were shooting at us down below and the fighters on our tail but I was able to work out the courses for the pilot. I’m sure you all know what the preparation is beforehand and there are estimated courses and things which one should take and as a navigator I’d worked that out in the briefing beforehand and I just read off from those and applied variation and deviation and gave the pilot those courses and we got through where we were going and whether we hit the target or not I don’t know because I handed over to Jonah, the bomb aimer. And on the way back I was feeling very unwell indeed and this was all due to the flu business I think. Anyhow, we did get back and thank God for that. That was a very hair raising situation to be in. I didn’t like feeling unable to do the job I had to do.
It was a very necessary job but a very horrible job and when I think we were trained to kill it’s a very revolting thought but if we didn’t do it we would have had much worse done to us as a nation and so I was very grateful to have got through my tour and because we were the only pommie crew amongst a lot of Australians they didn’t discriminate against us. Maybe we were favoured all the more I don’t know but they were dear fellows. We loved the lot of them and a very sad time it was when some got lost. There’s a recording of so many names of people who were lost after an operation.
That was a bit hair raising. Anything else you’d like to ask me?
CB: Yeah in practical terms was after the pilot was the navigator the most worked member of the crew?
DD: Oh yes and I was glad I was occupied like that. I didn’t see some of the horrible things that were going on but I had to record things. I had to give him new courses if need be and my main job was wind finding and I was able to do that well and our winds that we found were picked up, were broadcast so PFF could pick them up. And we were helpers of PFF we weren’t direct PFF people but PFF support was the denomination that we were given.
CB: So what is PFF?
DD: Pathfinders.
CB: Pathfinder right.
DD: Yes. They could wear a very special little golden wing.
[pause]
There’s a little map showing Elvington and such places we were talking about. You’ve got it alright?
CB: Yes thank you yeah.
CB Now on your plane.
DD: On?
CB On your Halifax did you have H2S?
DD: Oh yes.
CB: How did you use that?
DD: Yes.
CB: How did you use it?
DD: Well there was good screen to pick up the shape of towns and if a town had particular projection on one corner we could take a bearing on that and know where we were and I’ve got one chart in my, the big book which you can look at later on and I’ll show you a map which was specially adapted for H2S work. Gee was our main help and I’ve a Gee chart there. That gave us position line and we took a fix every six minutes and that was very handy because six minutes is a tenth of an hour and we could use the decimal point to move whatever our speed was. It was my job to find out what speed we were going. If we were getting to a place too early we’d have to do a dog leg beforehand. Do you know what that means?
CB: Just a weave.
DD: It was an equilateral triangle.
CB: Oh right.
DD: And you flew sides of it instead of a third and you just dodged with a piece across the bottom and you could lose two minutes or three if you would but that if you did that you were taking a colossal risk because you were crossing the main stream coming along. We were pretty close to each other sometimes.
CB: You couldn’t see them could you?
DD: No and there were times when you felt the slipstream of other aircraft almost as if the plane had hit a brick wall. She juddered because of it. Can you imagine that?
CB: How did you do your wind finding?
DD: Joining up the position on the ground to the position in the air and taking the vector that you got between the two you could work out the speed and the direction of the wind. The angle between the air position and the ground position gave you the direction of the wind. The length of the vector a quarter of the time you’d been working in the air you could work out the speed. It was done, this computer, are you aware what it was like? We had a red and green end on the pencil. It’s a laptop.
[pause]
DD: Had you seen one of these? No?
CB: No.
DD: No? Well speeds are set like that, went around that way and you put your wind on and you take a reading off against this point here and you know what angle we were working on.
CB: So this is the navigational computer mark 3, the Dalton Computer.
DD: And this was the circular slide rule converting centigrade to fahrenheit. Nautical to statute miles and so on. And my dear old friend on Transport Command brought that home from Canada for me.
CB: Oh did he? So it wasn’t standard issue in -
DD: Yes.
CB: The RAF? Was it?
DD: Oh yes.
CB: Oh it was. Right.
DD: Have a good look at it.
CB: Yes.
DD: And in that navigation manual there it tells you how to use it.
CB: Yeah.
DD: It talks about the duties of a navigator as such in that book too. The Navigator’s Bible.
CB: So back on operations a lot of it was the Ruhr. How did you actually find the target?
DD: Oh well the Pathfinders had been ahead normally and dropped flares. In daylight of course. It was a matter of the bomb aimer having taken near the target he’d then take over when we were say within ten miles of it, whateve,r and the target, when the PFF marked it, they had different methods of dropping flares. One name, I almost get nightmares about it - Wanganui. That was the name of an island near where Pathfinder Bennett lived. I’ve seen it from the air. Charlie Derby who you’ve met had been right around the south island of New Zealand and so had I. We went out at different times and stayed with Les Evans and his family. Les Evans has been here and stayed with us too. And Wanganui was the, when they dropped three different colours of flares and the master bomber would be overhead circling, looking down at the target and he’d give the bomb aimer instructions, drop your bombs to the right of the yellow flares or whatever. Yellow flares, red flares and green flares. Those were what we used.
And just to explain that Les Evans was an Australian but he emigrated to New Zealand.
DD: He married a New Zealand girl.
CB: Oh right.
DD: And he moved to Auckland.
CB: Right ok. So when you weren’t on operational flights what were you doing?
DD: Well keeping, getting as near to the right track as possible to the next turning point and we didn’t fly directly there. I can show you some little dots on little charts I’ve got there. Show you the operations we did and I’ve drawn them on straight lines but we never flew directly to the targets. This was in order to fox the Germans and we did all sorts of zigzags and shapes like that. And we also dropped window. Do you know what that is?
CB: Yeah.
DD: There’s some bits of window in my main big heavy blue book there. One of the wireless operator’s jobs used to throw out leaflets, propaganda leaflets. One thing which is rather saddening I had a lovely collection of leaflets and on one occasions when I was talking to a group somebody pinched them. I’ve got a few leaflets left but not the main lot that I did have.
CB: A collectable item.
DD: I suppose so yes.
So when you’re flying to the target you’re in a stream.
DD: Yes.
You’ve no idea where the other aircraft are. You said there were a number of issues, things that happened and you were glad you weren’t watching them because you were navigating so what sort of thing was that?
DD: Well it was up to the gunners and the bomb aimer went down into the nose. And they were keeping their eyes open for other aircraft too. We had no lights on of course as you can imagine and the pilot of course was alert to see that he was avoiding any other aircraft and you could feel the slipstream of other aircraft sometimes. It was quite a jolt at times to feel that but I still stayed at my post as navigator recording what was said by other people if it was necessary to record it and also making sure that I could easily feed the pilot with the course to steer once we’d been to the target.
I have rather an interesting business happening. Every October I go to a place called Porthleven and that’s where Guy Gibson was and I was flying at the same time as Guy Gibson but not actually on the same operations as he was and the people of Porthleven, he was there as a boy they’ve got a plaque up on a wall near the town clock which is away on a wing beside the harbour and because I’m a flying fellow I get invited over to it each year and they come and collect me for it and it’s a wonderful occasion. Very heartrending. And people reminiscent of their experiences of Guy Gibson as a child living in the town. Porthleven is about thirty miles from here I suppose. Out towards the Lizard Peninsula.
CB: As a crew, as a crew you did everything together.
DD: Oh yes.
CB: So when you weren’t flying what were doing?
DD: Writing that book you saw. Difficult to say. Ordinary sort of things. We visited local towns and did a bit of shopping. We weren’t a drinking party.
CB: Did you have many tasks to do on the airfield though?
DD: No.
CB: When you weren’t flying?
DD: Orderly Officer sometimes.
CB: Ahum.
DD: I was orderly officer on one occasion and a boy came up to the table and collected his pay, a corporal, and he’d been a boy at school with me. This was when I was at the Operational Training Unit and I got a message over the tannoy would Corporal Mitchell report to the Ordinary Officer. Got the fright of his life. Sounded terribly officious and when he saw me he just melted completely. And he was a boy with me at St Erth. His father was a carpenter and the president of the little band in the village and he was in that band.
CB: Now as you finished your operations.
DD: Oh yes.
CB: Then what happened?
DD: I got posted to Operational Training Unit as an instructor at Moreton in the Marsh and I decided then it would be a good time to get married and we lived in a village called Blockley which wasn’t far from the airfield there. It was an interesting little village. The plumber was called Mr Ledbetter.
[laughs]
The butcher was called Balhatchet. The chemist was called [Milton?] and I might think of a few more in a minute but, and the vicar was called Jasper. I was confirmed in Blockley.
CB: And what did you actually do as an instructor? Did you -
DD: Well, I didn’t fly then.
CB: Go up in the Wellingtons much
DD: I was a ground instruction.
CB: Right.
DD: And the young fellows who were going through were just needing, they were glad of my operational experience and one student who came through was a squadron leader who’d been with me in South Africa. He was a regular I think. I can’t think of his name now.
CB: And why would he be there?
DD: Oh to take a tour of operations. He hadn’t done any operations beforehand. He, he’d been a navigational pilot instructor. I can’t think of his name at all.
CB: No. So he was a pilot instructor as a pilot.
DD: Yes.
CB: But why was he getting navigation -
DD: He wanted -
CB: Training from you?
DD: To do a tour.
CB: Right.
DD: A tour was normally thirty one.
CB: Ahum.
DD: I believe Charlie who you met he had to do an extra one and he did it with a crew he had some illness or had flu or something and couldn’t go on operation with us and he said that they were a ropey lot. They were smoking. They were falling out among themselves and they were no, no sense of duty at all. But we were a very agreeable wonderful lot together and it was an experience that I can’t define. Closer than brothers. Our lives depended absolutely on each other and we relied on each other totally. Absolute trust. Absolute frankness.
CB: So what was your feelings at the end of the tour when you were all dispersed?
DD: When I was?
CB: When everybody was dispersed to other places.
DD: Well we wanted to keep in touch. We kept in touch with each other. I went to Dennis’ wedding at one time down at Llanelli and Dennis was a good old singer as I was saying. He had been a rather broad Oxford dialect beforehand. Now he’d become quite a little Welshman.
CB: So how long were you at the OTU as an instructor and what happened at the end of it?
DD: Well I was approached by someone who said, “You are an experienced navigator. Would you like to become a full time navigator?” I took the staff end course at Shawbury which was not far from Shrewsbury and right near there a place was called Church Stretton and the hill Caradoc which is the bungalow name here was overlooking where we were flying from. And the doctor who lived in this house before me came from that home district and he named this house after that hill called Caradoc which is a [?] in Shropshire.
Church Stretton has been rather precious to me because I had an aunt who lived there. She had a Breeches bible and she gave it to me which I’ve now handed to my son. My grandson Adam who will receive all my air force stuff he was married to a girl who came from there so we went back there to his wedding. And so church Stretton has been a little bit meaningful to us.
We had very good instruction there and I flew up to Reykjavik in Iceland. Went up on astro and came back on LRN Long Range Navigation.
CB: When you said you went up on astro that was because you were using the astrodome.
DD: Yes.
CB: And the sextant
DD: It wasn’t very, it wasn’t very accurate.
CB: But using a sextant.
DD: Oh yes.
CB: How often?
DD: A proper sextant.
CB: How often did you use sextants?
DD: Very rarely.
CB: On operation?
DD: I got I knew how to use one but it wasn’t used very often because it did need really precision and Gee and H2S gave us that. We could be much more precise than just map reading and well we were so high sometimes map reading wasn’t so easy and of course sometimes there was no character in what the land was below us.
CB: So how did you feel about using Gee because -
DD: Oh Gee was ideal. Yes the Gee screen gave us the position lines which we plotted and the more the angle between two position lines got nearer to a right angle the more precise it was. If it was shallow and less then say fifteen degrees it was little bit too inaccurate so we attempted to get position lines that would do that. In the book that I’ve got there the big heavy one you can look in that. Maybe you’d like to turn over a different pages in that and talk to me about that.
CB: Yes.
DD: But we, I stayed there after Shawbury, went back to Moreton in the Marsh again and I think I was offered the chance, “Would you like to come back in to the air force. Full air force.” No I didn’t wish to. I wanted to settle down to married life and family life and I did but I did ATC cadet work and that was very rewarding indeed.
CB: So -
DD: One of my cadets is still a local farmer here. He was a farmer’s boy and he was such a good cadet he was given something that in 1950 or so was a great privilege - a free flight to Singapore. I still see him and he still remembers the joy of being able to do that sort of thing. He went back to farming again.
CB: When were you demobbed and where?
DD: In September 1945. And my son David was born in that month as well. I was demobilised, where was it now? Harrogate I think. I’m not really sure. Harrogate I think.
CB: Right. I think in a moment we’ll pause for a break but just talk to me please a little more about H2S because that was sort of a mixed blessing.
DD: Well it was very good. H2S - just a code name for it, gave you on your screen a fluorescent picture of the ground below and towns stood out more so than anything else and if a town had a particular projection you could cotton on to that in order to get a bearing from it. And you’d rotate the screen [phone ringing] in order to – can you answer it please?
Tape mark 5308 the telephone begins to ring and the interview answers it for the interviewee – not transcribed.
Tape mark 5348 TAPE THEN REPEATS UNTIL MARK 1.47.20
CB: Derry we were just talking about the fact you were on 462 and then 466 squadrons
DD: Yes.
CB: At Driffield. Could you just explain how that evolved with the two squadrons?
DD: Well I started off with 466 all together but, and then 462 had been in the western desert and were posted back to England to take special duties. They were going to have a station of their own later on so we were transferred from 466 to 462 for that interim time. When 462 was built up to be a good squadron size then we were posted back to 466 and I can’t remember the name now but 462 went to not Swanton Morley
CB: Foulsham
DD: Faversham was it? That’s it so they were posted to that. They were a complete squadron on their own and you can read about it in the book by Mark Lax and the professor of chemistry. It’s possible that Mark Lax may be coming over to see me in late autumn this year. I’ve invited him. Whether he will or not I don’t know.
CB: So what’s his involvement with the squadron?
DD: He was just interested writing its history.
CB: Right.
DD: What his Australian Air Force career was I don’t know but he was an Air Commodore.
CB: And what age is he?
DD: Oh I should think middle fifties I should think.
CB: Right.
DD: They’re both younger than we are.
CB: So that covers that extremely well thank you very much and what were, oh final point. What were special operations?
DD: They might have been gardening which of course is laying mines in shipping tracks that was called gardening - code name for it. It could have been dropping food to needy people in certain areas that were damaged, overseas that is not in England. Those were their special duties.
CB: Right.
DD: They weren’t torpedo dropping but I did have a friend who was on Swordfishes dropping but that would have been a special duty but that was left to the RNAS which later was embodied in the RAF.
CB: Thank you. I’ll stop it there and pick up later.
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Derry DerringtonSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber CommandDescriptionAn account of the resourceDr Arnold Pearce Derrington grew up in Cornwall and joined the University Air Squadron at Exeter. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 and completed training at RAF Ansty, South Africa, RAF West Freugh and RAF Moreton in the Marsh, where he trained as a navigator on Wellingtons. He was posted to RAF Driffield where he served with 462 and 466 Squadrons. Most of his operations were over the Ruhr. He discusses H2S and Gee in detail. He was later an instructor at RAF Moreton in the Marsh and was demobbed in 1945. He kept a diary of his time in Bomber Command.CreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceChris BrockbankPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-07-14FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:56:20 audio recordingLanguageA language of the resourceengIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextADerringtonAP150715-01ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceJulie WilliamsHeather HughesRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.Spatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.South AfricaGreat BritainEngland--GloucestershireEngland--WarwickshireEngland--YorkshireScotland--WigtownshireGermany--Ruhr RegionGermanyTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1942194319441945462 Squadron466 SquadronaircrewbombingDistinguished Flying CrossGeeH2Snavigatorperception of bombing warpilotRAF AnstyRAF DriffieldRAF Moreton in the MarshtrainingWellingtonhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/8/16/PPfeiferKW1601.2.jpg0450b59d1d85189add452a3dedb38f49https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/8/16/APfeiferKW160627.1.mp3c26ca3cc75b7c84732e467d5dd9a806bDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourcePfeifer, CharlyCharly PfeiferC Pfeifer
Karl W PfeiferDescriptionAn account of the resourceOne interview with Karl Wilhelm Pfeifer (b. 1941), a schoolboy in Betzdorf an der Sieg during the war. The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextPfeifer, KWDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-06-27PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentPS: Lieber Charly,
CP: We can talk English, if you like to.
PS: Nein, es ist besser auf Deutsch. Können Sie mir erstmal ganz einfach ein bisschen von Ihrer Jugend erzählen. Die ersten Erinnerungen die Sie haben.
CP: Ja, die hängen natürlich zusammen mit den Zweiten Weltkrieg, weil, das ja außergewöhnlich, Krieg ist immer außergewöhnliche Situation, und da ich in der Nähe einer Stadt wohnte, in der zum Beispeil, sehr viel militärischer Nachschub über die Eisenbahn verschoben wurde, gleichzeitig gab es dort eine Fabrik für Lokomotiven und Industrie für Reparatur von Lokomotiven undsoweiter. Weil alles was in der Nähe im Krieg zerschossen wurde, wurde dort repariert. Also waren die Alliierten daran interessiert, diese Werke und die Eisenbahn, den Eisenbahnknotenpunkt stillzulegen durch air raids, was sie dann auch gemacht haben. Und ich kann mich dann als Kind in soweit daran erinnern, denn Bombenabwürfe sind ja nun nicht uberhörbar. Dann war es so, das abends und nachts, wenn die Alarmsirenen gingen, wir natürlich aus dem Bett mussten. Meine Mutter, mein Vater hatten schon immer einen gepackten Koffer da stehen. Und dann sind wir los in, entweder einen Bunker, das war aber kein Bunker der extra errichtet wurde, sondern das war ein Stollen von einer ehemaligen Mangangrube, oder aber wir sind, war auch wir bei also in einen Eisenbahntunnel dann nachts. Und… [dog barking] Dann ist klar das nach Bombenangriffen die Stadt dann brannte und ich kann mich erinnern dass meine Mutter mich auf den Arm nahm, weil ich alleine nicht so aus dem Fenster gucken konnte, schauen konnte, und ich dann gedacht habe das die Sonne rot scheint weil der Himmel rot war, aber in Wirklichkeit war das ja nur der Wiederschein des Feuers aus der Stadt.
Speziel kann ich mich erinnern an den Winter 1944-45, wenn wir Kinder spät nachmittags draußen gespielt haben, und es war blauer Himmel, dann konnten wir die Abschüsse der V2 Raketen sehen, weil in unserer Nähe, war nur ein Paar Kilometer weg von uns, war eine Abschussstation für V2 Raketen und im abendblauen Himmel konnte man schön sehen den Kondenstreifen der Rakete und wenn Brennschluss war, sah man nur noch in der Abendsonne den hellen Punkt weiterfliegen. Die wurden damals aber schon nicht mehr in Richtung England geschossen, sondern Richtung Belgien und Holland, weil sich in dem Bereich die Alliierten schon befanden, nach der Normandie. Und das war natürlich für uns Kinder interessant, weil logischerweise wir das ja nicht so als Krieg empfunden haben, weil wir ja nicht direkt da involved, also beteiligt waren, sondern mehr als, ja eine Art von besonderer Ablenkung aus dem Tagesgeschehen heraus. Und wir sind dann, dass weiss ich noch, 1945, sind wir dann von Zuhause weg, weil so viel gebombt wurde, und sind das, aber nicht allzu weit weg, sind wir in so‘n Dorf gezogen, was für Bombardements kein Interesse war, wo also nichts war, keine Industrien und nichts. Da wo ich zum Anfang wohnte war natürlich viel Industrie und dran war man ja interessiert. Und das direkte Ruhrgebiet, das war ja auch nur 80-90 km weg von mir, damals, so dass wir das alles also mitgekriegt haben. Wo ich mich noch dran erinnern kann war dass, sehr oft, abends, wenn‘s dunkel wurde, dunkel war, wir, ein einzelnes Flugzeug kam, wir nannten ihn den eisernen Gustaf und der machte aber nichts anderes, das war der Pfadfinder, der vor wegflog, und dann die sogenannten, wir sagten Christbaüme, Weinachtsbaüme, gesetzt hat, das war also, sah aus wie ein Riesending mit Leuchtkugeln, das also die ganze Gegend erhelte, und das war wie wir, wie ich dann später erfuhr, als ich älter war, dass das kein Schauspiel war, sondern dass das die Zielmarkierung für die Bomber war. Und auch als Kind haben wir natürlich nicht gewusst, sind das nun Englische Bomber, sind das Amerikanische Bomber oder, für uns waren das einfach nur Bomber.
Nachwirkungen von all diesen Dingen, nach den Krieg, als ich dann selber einigermaßen unterwegs war, also selbststandig war. Wir haben sehr viel aus der Natur gelebt damals, das hieß, wir gingen im Herbst, auch Pilze sammeln undsoweiter, und da haben wir zum Beispiel massenhaft nicht explodierte Brandbomben gefunden, Stabbrandbomben, das waren Fehlwürfe, die also die Stadt nicht erreicht haben, sondern in einem Waldgebiet runtergegangen sind. Das könnte ich Ihnen hier auch, ich habe extra deshalb hier Google Earth angeschmissen. Ich kann Ihnen das mal zeigen wo das war. Ok?
PS: Ach ja, können Sie mir sagen wo Sie eben gelebt haben?
CP: Betzdorf an der Sieg, das ist 90 km nordöstlich von Köln. Köln ist für jeden ‚n Begriff. Da bin ich geboren, aufgewachsen und ich bin 1961 erst nach Jever gekommen hier, durch die Luftwaffe. Sonst habe ich da unten gelebt, in dieser Gegend, dicht, dicht zum Ruhrgebiet. Das ist, was ich Ihnen jetzt erzählt hab, ist alles nichts von Jever hier. Jever war nichts los hier. Die Bomben, das weiß ich von Bekannten, die Bomben die hier gefallen sind, waren alles Notwürfe, dass heißt die sie in Bremen nicht so wie Wellington, die sie in Bremen nicht losgeworden sind wegen Wetter, oder Wilhelmshafen vorbeigeworfen haben die hier, aber meistens im Land hier und wo nichts passiert ist. Aber wie gesagt, zu meiner Zeit, da unten ist sehr viel bombardiert worden, weil ja auch alle Flugzeuge, die Bomber, auch in der Nacht, wenn die zum Ruhrgebiet flogen, flogen die immer über uns weg. Weil wir, halt, aus der Luft betrachtet waren wir direkt vor der Haustür, wenn man so will. Denn aus der Luft betrachtet sind ja 80-100 km keine Entfernung. So, und [pauses] ich weiß allerdings, also eben nicht mein Erleben, das weiß ich auch aus der Erzählung meiner Tante, die dort nach wie vor, als wir mal kurzfristig weggezogen waren wegen der Bombenwürfe, die ist dort geblieben und die hat auch erlebt, wie dann die Amerikaner eingerückt sind dort und wo also gegenüber auf den anderen Hügel noch Deutsche lagen und die sich dann gegenseitig da beschossen haben. Hat’s auch noch ein Paar Tote gegeben, liegen noch drei und auch ein Amerikanischer Leutnant liegt noch bei uns in meiner Heimat noch auf den Friedhof heutzutage. Und das ist aber alles relativ schnell gegangen da denn das waren die letzten Kriegstage wo also, die Alliierten rückten vor und die Deutschen rückten nur immer weiter weg. Das war also nicht mehr weiter viel, wiegesagt. Nach dem Kriege dann [waren] wir als Kinder natürlich sehr interessiert an allem. Wir sind also überall hingelaufen, wo abgeschossene Panzer lagen, wo abgeschossene Flugzeuge lagen, weil das für uns Kinder interessant war sowas. Da sind natürlich überall hinmarschiert. In der vicinity, also in der Nähe da wo wir hinlaufen konnten. Und da gab es für uns natürlich einiges zu sehen, für uns Kinder, wir waren ja neugierig, wie, wo, was ist da. Ja, ich bin auch in dieser Gegend zur Schule gegangen. Bin dann nach der Schule, wie in Deutschland üblich, habe ich ‚ne Lehre gemacht und am Ende dieser Lehrzeit von dreienhalb Jahren bin ich dann zur Luftwaffe gegangen. Und hab dann so die Standardausbildung gemacht bei der Luftwaffe, Flugzeugführerschein, Fluglehrerlehrgang, irgendwann Offiziersschule und also was hier, und hab auch sehr viel Ausbildung in America gemacht, war also sehr oft in Amerika drüben, und bin dann 1993 hier in Jever Airbase auch pensioniert worden. Habe mich aber trotzdem immer weiter mit der Luftwaffe beschäftigt. Der Fliegerhorst Jever hier ist so mein zweites Zuhause. Und so ist das auch gekommen, nachdem ich die ersten Verbindungen mit Jack Waterfall hatte, das ich dann diese Geschichten wieder intensiviert hatte. Ich wusste zwar sehr lange schon, ich wusste, seit Anfang der Sechziger Jahre wusste ich, wo die Wellington abgestürtzt war, weil ich kannte den Förster, den Vor-Vorgänger von Carsten Streufert, den kannte ich auch gut, der hat mir das mal eines Tages gezeigt und damals, 1960, war das ja gerade zehn jahre, zwanzig Jahre her und die Baüme waren dann noch nicht so wie sie dann heute sind, das war alles noch gut sichtbar. Und wir haben dann damals auch schon Einzelteile gesammelt die man so noch oberflächlich fand weil wir in den Neunzehnhundertsechziger Jahren noch nicht die, oder überhaupt, wir hatten überhaupt keinen Metalldetector, oder wie wir sagen Minensuchgerät. Heute haben wir natürlich, ich auch, das modernste Gerät. Wenn ich heute da langgehe, piept es an allen Ecken und Kanten, weil immer noch Blechstücke, Munitionen und allesmögliche im Boden leigt. Denn die damalige Luftwaffe im Dritten Reich hat ja nur oberflächlich abgeraümt, die Grossteile die da rumlagen. Alles andere da hat keiner gesucht, was da an Kleinzeug rumliegt. Und deshalb findet da man das heute noch. Und Ich bin mir sicher, da will ich zunächst auch mal hin, dass man an anderen Stellen auch noch genügend findet. Denn südlich vom Flugplatz, die Wellington die ist ja runtergegangen im Upjeeverschen Forst. Noch weiter südlich sind auch welche abgeschossen worden und um die Stellen denke ich hat sich heute noch gar niemand gekümmert. Es ist auch in Deutschland ein bisschen kompliziert weil man, weil offiziell brauche ich ja jedesmal die Genehmiegung vom Landeigentümer, das ich da überhaupt hin gehen darf und normalerwiese müsste ich noch eine Polizeiliche Genemiegung haben, weil ja immer die Gefahr besteht, Munition zu finden und ähnliches. Die brauche ich aber nicht, weil ich Gottseidank Munitionsfachmann bin durch die Luftwaffe und Sprenglizenzen habe und Feuerwehrlizenz, so das ich das eigen verantwortlich machen kann. Aber am sonsten ist das immer mit Schwierigkeiten verbunden, weil viele Landeigentümer sagen nein sie wollen das nicht, das man auf ihrem Land keine Löcher gräbt zum Beispiel. Ja, [pauses] zum Krieg fallt mir natürlich jetzt im Moment so gar nichts mehr ein.
PS: Sie deuteten vorher… Sie haben mir vorher die Bilder gezeigt von der Gegend um Betzdorf und den anderen Ort. Können sie mir das moment noch einmal wieder ein bisschen erzählen, der Ort wo Sie Pilze…
CP: Ich bin aufgewachsen in einem Ort, der heißt Scheuerfeld. Da haben wir letztens erst 1100 Jahre Bestehen gefeiert. Das ist eigentlich ein ganz besonderer Ort. Das war zu der Zeit da unten als ich geboren wurde noch Gebiet der Freien Männer, so nannte man das, änhlich wie hier in Ostfriesland, deshalb heißen die Ostfriesen ja auch die freien Ostfriesen. Und dieser Ort liegt ungefähr zwei Km von der Stadt Betzdorf weg. So dass das letztendlich, wenn ich das aus der Luft betrachte, eine Einheit ist das ganze. [pauses] Ja wie gesagt, da bin ich halt geboren, aufgewachsen und habe das halt erlebt was ich vorhin nun berichtet habe, aus der Kriegszeit, genau in dieser Gegend da.
PS: Sie hatten mir da auch erzählt warum….. Sie hatten da eben etwas von Scheuerfeld und Betzdorf erzählt in Verbindung mit den Bombardierungen.
CP: Ja, genau. Weil in Betzdorf diese Werke waren, Eismann Ausbesserungswerk, Lokomotivenfabrik, also wo Lokomotiven gebaut wurden, und viele, viel Gerät der Bahn, der Eisenbahn war ja zum Teil nach Bombenangriffen nicht mehr zu reparieren also musste man ja auch noch neue Lokomotiven bauen. Und in Betzdorf war ein grosser Rangierbahnhof, wo also Waren, Kriegsmaterial zu Zügen zusammengestellt wurde, die dann halt irgendwohinn an die Front fuhren, und auch mit Kanonen drauf, Panzer, Munitionen, was weiss ich, und deshalb war Betzdorf für die Alliierten vom Interesse, logischerweise Nachschub abschneiden und halt verhindern das noch, durch Bombardierungen, das noch Lokomotiven gebaut or repariert wurden, undsoweiter. Das war ein Hauptgrund warum dort viel bombardiert wurde.
PS: Sind Sie noch in… haben Sie noch Familie in Betzdorf? Und Scheuerfeld?
CP: Nein, nur Bekannte. Schulfreunde. Meine Familie, meine Eltern sind tot und meine Geschwister wohnen überall nur nicht mehr da. Da wohnen nur noch Freunde, Bekannte, keine, keine Verwandtschaft von mir mehr. Wobei ich, wobei muss ich sagen, ich komme ein Mal im Jahr komme ich dorthin. Ich besuch also, einmal im Jahr besuche ich mein Schulfreund da unten. Ich bin ja auch, wie Sie sehen, Jägersman und mein Schulfreund hat auch ein Jagdgebiet da unten und da fahre ich einmal im Jahr zur Jagd da runter und frische die Jugenderinnerungen auf.
Zum Beispiel, habe ich, ich erzählte ja vorhin das wir im Winter da gesehen haben wenn die V2 flog. Da bin ich inzwischen mal gewesen, wo die abgeschossen wurde und das waren ja zum Teil ganz einfache Abschussgebiete. Da hat man einfach mitten im Wald irgendwo ‚ne Betonplatte gegossen, mehr war das nicht, und der Rest war ja alles in LKWs, die dann drumrum im Wald gut getarnt standen und da bin ich zum Beispiel hin gewesen, ein Ort der heißt Bad Marienberg und dort habe ich dann im Wald auch noch so eine Platte, so ne Abschussrampe, so ‚ne Platte gefunden. Das war Bad Marienberg und eine andere Abschusstellung, die war nicht weit davon, die hieß Hachenburg.
PS: Und das waren die V2.
CP: Ja, das war V2. Das wird auch gut beschrieben in einem Buch, das da heißt “Kriegsschauplatz Westerwald”. Da kommt das drin vor und dann gibt‘s aus dieser Gegend noch ein Buch, das hieß, ich erklär das gleich, “Gefrorene Blitze”. Das stammt aus den Volksmund, das heißt, das haben die Leute so gesagt, wenn die V2 ab einer bestimmten Höhe zog die auch Kondensstreifen und genauso wie bei jetzt von den Jets wenn der Kondenstreifen anfangt zu zerfallen, irgendwann zerfiel der natürlich auch und weil der eine Zeitlang da war und sah aus wie ein Blitz, haben die Leute auf den Land das “Gefrorene Blitze” genannt. Und so heißt auch das Buch. “Gefrorene Blitze” behandelt die V2 Stationen im Westerwald. Und das ist ja direkt an meiner Heimat. Ich bin zwar Rheinland-Pfälzer aber der Westerwald grenzte direkt an meiner Heimat dran.
PS: Hat der Freund den Sie hin und wieder besuchen noch Erinnerungen? Haben Sie je noch darüber gesprochen?
CP: Ja, wir haben vorwiegend nur über Nachkriegsdinge gesprochen. Zum Beispiel, wenn wir im Wald waren und Brandbomben eingesammelt haben und sowas. Aber ob er direkt noch aus den letzten Kriegsjahr oder so noch was weiß, oder das letzte Halbjahr, sagen wir mal 1945 Januar bis Mai, das weiß ich nicht, da musste ich ihn ja fragen, weil wir uns weniger darüber unterhalten haben.
PS: Ich weiss jetzt nicht ob ich das aufgenommen haben. Können Sie mir vielleicht noch Moment von dieser Erfahrung mit den Brandbomben erzählen?
CP: Ja, Wie gesagt, Die Brandbomben steckten, das waren die Sechskantstabe, so lang, die stachen einfach den Waldboden, weil sie nicht explodiert waren. Und wenn wir Kinder im Wald waren zu Pilze suchen oder sonst, haben wir die natürlich gefunden. Und neugierig wie wir waren haben wir natürlich auch welche mitgenommen. Weil das war so. Wir haben in diesen Dingern gar keine Gefahr gesehen, weil diese Sachen alle bei uns in der Schule sehr genau beschrieben waren. In der Schule auf den Fluren überall hingen Plakate, „Hände weg von Fundmunition“, und da waren die einzelnen Sachen, die man finden konnte, waren da alle beschrieben und da waren zum Beispeil die Brandbomben auch beschrieben. Und da ich mich zu der Zeit auch schon, was ich heute noch tue, für alle diese Dinge, Waffen und Kriegsmaterial und Sprengstoff und alles interessiere, habe ich also.. Also die Brandbomben da habe ich natürlich nicht mit vier Jahren gesucht, sonder das war in der Zeit wenn wir schon alleine in den Wald gingen um Pilze zu suchen, da war ich zehn, elf, zwölf Jahre alt. Und da hab ich mich also schon sehr für Munition und Sprengstoff und all sowas interessiert. Und das habe ich natürlich später beim Militär alles ausgebaut das ganze.
PS: Und wenn Sie jetzt zurückdenken an die Kriegszeit, gesehen von heute, welche Eindrücke haben Sie?
CP: Sagen wir mal so. Was störend war, war nachts aufzustehen und in den Bunker zu rennen. Am sonsten, für uns Kinder, war das eine interessante Zeit, weil immer was los war. Und dann, man sah Flugzeuge am Himmel und wusste natürlich als Kind noch nicht genau überhaupt nicht wer ist wer, man wusste nur “die mögen sich nicht” weil da geschossen wurde oben, das hörte man ja unten. Von daher war es seine erlebnisreiche, interessante Zeit. Wie gesagt, mal abgesehen vom Bunkerlaufen nachts und änhlichen. Und was natürlich gestört hat, uns Kinder, gegen Ende des Krieges, Kinder haben ja immer Hunger, und Essen war immer weniger gegen Ende des Krieges. Das hat also eine bischen gestört, dass man vom eigenen Magenknurren, nicht nur von der Sirene wach wurde nachts, sondern auch vom eigenen Magenknurren. Aber am sonsten was tagsüber war und was so geschah um uns drum rum, weil ja außer Bombardements direkt am Boden bei uns zu der Zeit keine Kriegshandlungen waren. War ja nix, das war ja alles in der Luft. Und deshalb war es für uns Kinder immer interessant. [pauses] Meine Schwester, das ist ein Phänomen, das müssten aber Psychologen klaren. Meine Schwester ist im März 1945 geboren, das heißt die war bei Kriegsende drei Monate alt. Und das war die Zeit wo also sehr viel Bombardement war, und sehr viel geschossen wurde in der Luft und und und. Was ich später erlebt habe war, da habe ich mich immer gefragt, wie kann das sein. Wenn wir beim Essen sassen, und es kam in der Küche nur eine Fliege angeflogen, da ist meine Schwester vom Stuhl gesprungen und hat sich unterm Tisch versteckt. Obwohl sie das ja eigentlich gar nicht, sie war drei monate alt als das alles passierte. In wieweit man das ganze Getöse im Mutterleib schon mitkriegt weiss ich nicht. Ich sag dass ist ein Fall für irgendein Psychologen, rausszufinden wie sowas kam. Aber meine Schwester brauchte nur eine Fliege sehen die ankommt, irgendwas was in der Luft fliegt, war die verschwunden, weg.
PS: Jetzt wo Sie seit einigen Jahren die Beziehungen, gute Beziehungen zu den Briten haben, wie sehen Sie das ein bisschen alles, ich meine die Bombenkampagne und, ja?
CP: Ja sagen wir mal so. Nicht nur die Engländer und Amerikaner haben gebombt, wir haben auch gebombt. Also beruhte auf Gegenseitigkeit. Deshalb bin ich auf niemandem gram. Und dann, habe ich auch heute den Standtpunkt dass die Welt noch wesentlich besser sein könnte, wenn wir keine Politiker hatten. Denn sehr viele Politiker sind ja Schuld an manch einem Desaster. Und wie man ja jetzt auch sieht in unseren Beziehungen mit den Verwandten der ehemaligen Besatzung und und und, Leute unter sich vertragen sich in der Regel immer gut. Das ist überhaupt kein Thema und ich hätte auch keinen Groll gegen irgendjemandem, was weil das ist halt Krieg. Da fürt nicht nur einer Krieg, sondern da führt auch der andere Krieg. Und da muss man halt rechnen, damit rechnen dass es da Tote und Verletzte gibt, und und und. Nur also ich stehe dem ganzen, und das war auch in der Zeit wo ich in Amerika war, eigentlich positiv gegenüber, weil ich mir sage, die Leute unter sich vertragen sich in der Regel immer gut. Irgendwelche die dann, da gibt es ja ein spezieles Wort für in Deutschland, Scharfmacher, Leute die also solange hetzen, aufhetzen bis der nächste meint er muss mal zum Gewehr greifen. Also ich will das was wir hier machen und deshalb wollen wir das auch für die Zukunft weiter aufrechterhalten. Da bin ich auch mit Jack einig, wir können uns naturlich, alleine schon aus Kostengründen, nicht jedes Jahr treffen hier. Aber wir werden das ganze am Leben erhalten und vielleicht haben ich ja noch die Gelegenheit, wenn meine Gesundheit mir keinen Strich durch die Rechnung macht, noch irgenwelche anderen Absturtzstellen zu erkunden hier und vielleicht noch Kontakt zu anderen Leuten bekommen in England. Denn die Zeit drängt ja. Wir als Zeitzeugen sterben aus und die Englischen Zeitzeugen sterben genauso aus, so dass man irgendwann keinen mehr hat mit dem man über diese Dinge reden kann, den man, weil halt niemand mehr da ist. [pauses] Und Ich habe leider, leider auch in meiner Heimat da unten, wie gesagt, ausser mein Schulkameraden, auch niemanden mehr der so alt ist, dass er mir berichten könnte, den der müsste ja so wie Heino, 94 sein. Und, Ja und ich selber bin auch 75 und viele von meinen Bekannten da unten leben schon gar nicht mehr. Mein Schulfreund, auch 75, Paar noch drum rum, aber es gibt natürlich auch welche die sich im ganzen Leben für sowas gar nicht interessiert haben, die wissen auch nix zu erzählen weil sie das nicht interessiert hat. Und wir wie gesagt, wir haben früher, als Kinder, alles was mit Militär zu tun hatte, was wir gefunden haben im Wald, haben wir mitgenommen, haben wir gesammelt, zum Leidwesen meiner Eltern, den die mochten ja auch keinen Sprengstoff und keine Bomben im Haus haben. Aber ich hatte, wie das früher auch im Land so war, wir hatten neben dem Haus ein Hühnerstall, und änhliches, da immer alles versteckt. Aber wie gesagt, kenne ich leider niemandem da unten der also älter ist und der sagen könnte “Ja, ich habe noch das und das erlebt”.
PS: Wissen Sie von mehreren anderen Absturtzstellen hier in der Gegend?
CP: Ja es müssen noch zwei in der Nähe vom Ems-Jade-Kanal liegen und im Bereich Wilhelmshaven müssen noch welche sein, wo ich aber nicht auf‘m Meter genau kenne, wäre aber herauszufinden.
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Charly PfeiferCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourcePeter SchulzeSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Bombing, AerialDescriptionAn account of the resourceCharly Pfeifer recounts his experiences of the bombing of Betzdorf an der Sieg, a small town not far from the Ruhr. He explains the strategic importance of the city, due to the presence of locomotive works. He recounts taking shelter from the bombs in a former manganese mine. He remembers the time as a child, when he used to go into the forest looking for mushrooms and finding incendiary devices. He tells that he wasn’t afraid of these objects because at school there were posters with detailed descriptions of the ordnance. He happened to find V-2 ramps hidden in the forest. He explains how it was a very interesting time for children because there was always something happening. The most annoying aspect, he remarks, was being woken up, not only by the air alarm, but also by the rumbling of his own tummy. He recounts seeing Pathfinder aircraft, which they as children used to call 'The Iron Gustav' and when it dropped the target indicators, which they called 'Christmas trees'. He tells about his sister’s weird and unexplainable behaviour. Although she was only three months old at the time of end of the war, later on whenever there was a fly coming into the kitchen, she jumped down from her chair and quickly hid under the table.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-06-27ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourcePeter SchulzeLanguageA language of the resourcedeuSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Germany--BetzdorfGermanyRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:35:31 audio recordingTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAPfeiferKW160627CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantCivilianbombingcivil defencehome frontincendiary devicePathfinderstarget indicatorV-2V-weaponWindowhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/10/18/ABulleymentB150603.2.mp33aee02dfedac71c87526a19eb5cce2c8Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceBulleyment, BarbaraB BulleymentBarbara WatkinsonDescriptionAn account of the resourceOne oral history interview with Barbara Bulleyment née Watkinson (b. 1920), Women’s Auxiliary Air Force clerk and equipment assistant.
The collection has been catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.DateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-06-03RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextBulleyment, BTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentDE: Try again. This is an interview with Barbara Bulleyment. We’re in Brigg. It is the 3rd of June. My name is Dan Ellin. I’m terribly sorry, can you -
BB: That’s alright.
DE: Start that again?
BB: My parents were farmers in New Bolingbroke and I worked in a large department store in Boston, in the millinery department and one of the assistants had already left to do war work and so I was, I didn’t have to go straightaway and eventually I got my call up papers and I went to Bridgnorth.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And I did a month’s training there and then I went to Bridlington on the equipment course for about six weeks and after that I was posted to 16MU in Stafford. And when I got there I was told that would be it. I would never move to another station ‘cause once you got to 16MU station they never posted you anywhere else. But eventually I was posted to 209MU in Broughton near Brigg and I stayed there until I was demobbed sometime in March. 19 - 1945.
And while I was in Broughton people from the village used to invite us to their homes and I, myself and a friend went to this lady’s house and eventually her brother came home from Rhodesia and so I got to know him.
DE: What had he been doing in Rhodesia?
BB: He was in the RAF.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And he was, he’d gone there for training to be a pilot but in Rhodesia he couldn’t fly there so he changed and he became an electrician. And eventually we got married in June 1946.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And came to live in Broughton because he worked for the council and by then the camp had closed and the council had took it over and modernised the huts and with my husband being in charge of that in, at the council we managed to get the officers’ quarters which was very nice. And we stayed there for about three years until we rented a property in Brigg. And
[pause]
And then we eventually bought this house on the Bigby High Road.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And unfortunately, oh I think it was about ten years ago, my husband died but by that time I’d become friendly with somebody and, oh I know what it was, it was a lady who, [pause] who bred cocker spaniel dogs.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And we wanted one so we went to see her and so she said, “Why don’t you join the Elsham Association?” which I did.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And, and I’m still a member.
DE: But you were never stationed at Elsham Wolds? It’s, it’s
BB: No I was never stationed there but because I was stationed in Broughton, we used, at Broughton it was all equipment stuff for aeroplanes.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And that’s how I could become a member and I used to think to myself well although I wasn’t on an operational station at least I did help with equipment for aeroplanes and helped to keep them up in the sky.
DE: Yeah. Quite right. So what sort of, what sort of equipment did they have in 209 MU?
BB: it was only, anything that you’d need to keep planes up.
DE: So was this, was this spare parts? Or
BB: Spare parts yeah.
DE: For the aircraft.
BB: For the aircraft. And we and we used to send parts out to other like, used to send them to Lindholme and all the stations around there.
DE: Ahum.
[knocking]
This is, I’d better – it’s my gardener.
Other: Morning.
DE: Alright. I’ll pause it then for a moment. Somebody’s knocked at the door.
[pause]
DE: Ok so resuming the interview you were telling me about the, the spare parts and, and
BB: Yes.
DE: What it was like working at 209 MU? Did you – What, what was your role there? Your, your job?
BB: Well I used to issue whatever any, any, anything that maybe was, we’d get it through the post. And there was, there were fifty WAAFs and the majority of the airmen we thought were old but they weren’t. They were only about in say their thirties or forties.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And there was one lady, she was a cook, and of course the living quarters was in some woods and were some pheasants and one day she decided that she’d steep some raisins in some whisky and put them on a line to see if she could catch one of these pheasants which she did and she sat nursing it until somebody came and could take it away from her.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And of course the RAF officers had that for their meal one day.
DE: Do you think that was a fair trade for the, for the booze that she steeped the raisins in?
BB: Yes [laughs].
And I was demobbed then and afterwards with my husband working for the council the council took them over the huts and made them into living quarters.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And so we were able to get the WAAF officers’ quarters and we stayed there for about three years.
DE: What were, what were the huts like when you were living there and working there?
BB: Well they just had the beds and, and of course they had the heating was a coke stove.
DE: Was it a large - large camp?
BB: No there was only about the fifty WAAFs and about fifty airmen. That’s all.
DE: Ahum and so how many people were there to a hut?
BB: I would say about twenty.
DE: Did you, did you mix with, with any of the airmen or did you have friends among the other WAAF?
BB: We mixed with the airmen when we went to, for the, for our meals.
DE: Ahum.
BB: Because there was just the one dining hall.
DE: What was the food like?
BB: Reasonable. We got used to it.
DE: And while you were working there did you do shifts or did you -?
BB: No we worked about 8 o’clock in the morning till about say five at night.
DE: And what did you do in the evening?
BB: Mostly we’d go into Scunthorpe. Maybe to the pictures or something.
DE: And how did you get to Scunthorpe?
BB: I think there was some vehicle on the camp that took us.
DE: Ahum.
[pause]
DE: Did you go anywhere else for, you know, during your time off?
BB: I think we might have gone into the village of Broughton.
DE: Ahum. What was in Broughton?
BB: Only the pubs.
DE: So did you, did you go, gp for a drink with some of your friends then?
BB: Yes.
DE: Which pub did you go to?
BB: I think there’s a, there was the Dog and Rat. Sometimes to the Red Lion and sometimes in the village they would put a dance on
DE: Ahum
BB: Which we’d go to. And when I got leave I used to go home.
DE: How did you get, how did you get home?
BB: Sometimes I’d get on a bus and sometimes I would try, I’d try to hitch home. And sometimes there was a train from Lincoln late at night and I’d get on that and get to New Bolingbroke Station and sometimes my father would meet me from there.
DE: Ahum.
BB: He would ride a bike and bring me a bike as well.
And um
[Phone ringing]
BB: Who’s that one?
DE: That’s yours yeah.
[pause]
DE: Right. Resuming the interview again after a phone call. You were talking about going home on leave and your father meeting you with -
BB: Yes.
DE: With, with bicycles.
BB: And sometimes I would try and hitchhike with somebody and give me a lift.
DE: Ahum.
BB: If not I’d get to Tumby Woodside Station and sometimes the porter would walk with me and otherwise I’d just walk home on my own and sometimes I’d get home and my parents didn’t know I was arriving so I climbed through the kitchen window and they’d find me there.
I’d get up in the morning and [pause] then when I went back I could always get on a train from New Bolingbroke station to Lincoln and the railway line passed through my father’s land and I could always wave to my parents. And then I’d get to Lincoln and I could manage to get a bus back to Broughton and then,
[pause]
DE: Was it easier to get home from Broughton then from Stafford then?
BB: Yes I always got, I used to walk to the camp at Stafford to the station there and it was about a three mile walk.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And then I could get, I’d get a train from Stafford to Lincoln.
DE: Was, was the work very different at Stafford to, compared to Broughton?
BB: Not really. And I know, I remember, I got to Lincoln Station and the train only went to Tumby Woodside and somebody told me that I wanted to have a word with the engine drivers and that they would take me on to Tumby Woodside Station. And one of them said you may as well work, do some work while you’re here so they got me shovelling coal on to the train.
[pause]
DE: What was that like?
BB: It was, I suppose you just took it in your stride.
DE: Ahum.
[pause]
DE: Can we go, go back a little bit further and well, did you have a choice about joining the WAAF or did you - ?
BB: Oh yes I did I [pause] you could join any, any service that you wanted.
DE: Ahum.
BB: I don’t know why I joined the WAAF but I did. I didn’t regret doing it. In actual fact I quite enjoyed my life in the forces.
DE: Ahum. So can you remember when you, when you did join?
BB: December 12th 1941.
DE: And how old were you then?
BB: Twenty one.
DE: Ahum so, and then what happened you were called up to go to?
BB: I went to Bridgnorth first.
DE: And what was that like there?
BB: It was just a training camp. And the first time I went I met some people, some other people who were joining the WAAFs and we decided one night that we’d go out and get into Bridgnorth itself and we lost our way.
DE: Ahum
BB: And we finally got back to the camp and of course it was nearly midnight when we should have been in bed so we all got into our beds in our clothing when, when the duty officer came around.
Why I was at 16 MU because I was, I would become equipment assistant. I was in the barrack stores there issuing clothing and what not.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And I think that is why, when that I was sent to 209 MU at Broughton and
[pause]
Am I repeating myself again when I say that we arrived at Appleby Station in Broughton?
DE: No, no, no.
BB: And we were just told, we rang up for transport and were told that the camp had closed down because it was a new one and there was nobody on duty there and that we were to start, they told us which way to come and that this somebody would meet us on the, on a bike and
[pause]
DE: So was, were you posted to Broughton right at the very start of its existence?
BB: Yes.
DE: So.
BB: And that was 1943
DE: Ahum.
BB: And I stayed there until I was demobbed.
DE: So you think you were posted there because you had experience of
BB: Of MU.
DE: Ahum.
BB: Yes.
DE: So what was it like when, when you first arrived?
BB: Everything was new [pause] and I know when there were showers and no, they weren’t ever used and the WAAF officer said why weren’t the showers used so we said because there weren’t any curtains to make them, you know, private.
DE: Ahum.
BB: So eventually we got the curtains and we did use the showers.
DE: So how were getting washed before the shower curtains arrived?
BB: I think there were about, a couple of bathrooms so we used to have to try and get to the bathroom before anybody else did.
DE: And did it, did it start quite small? A small number of people or - ?
BB: No it never got any larger. It just, I think just supplied to the other stations around.
DE: Ahum.
BB: I can remember Lindholme, Old Finningley but we never sent anything to Elsham and I think Elsham was only used if we needed the MO. And all our mail went to Elsham.
DE: I see. Did you ever have any dealings with the MO?
BB: I don’t think I did. I don’t seem to remember.
DE: So what were the officers like at - ?
BB: Well they, there was only the one WAAF officer and two RAF officers and they were cause it was such, with it being such a small unit they were quite friendly.
DE: Ahum.
[pause]
So were you all friends there together? Did you got on well or did you - ?
BB: Yes we all got on well together. And eventually the Canadians arrived in to the woods and some of the WAAFs got friendly with them.
DE: Ahum. So were the Canadians stationed there?
BB: Yes they were.
DE: What jobs were they doing?
BB: Do you know I don’t really know. It seems such a long time ago now.
DE: Did you make a friend with any of the Canadians?
BB: No I didn’t. I never used to bother.
DE: Had you met your husband by then then?
BB: I don’t think I had.
[pause]
I’ve been going, since I heard from you about, I’ve been going through my head to think what on earth can I think about?
[pause]
BB: What did you think about, about the war during the time?
DE: Well I suppose sometimes you’d think how much longer is it going on?
BB: Ahum.
[pause]
DE: And of course we’d listen to the news.
[pause]
DE: Did you have a NAAFI on the site?
BB: No. One used to come and we’d get whatever we wanted.
DE: How, sorry I don’t understand. How, how did a, how did the NAAFI?
BB: Well the NAAFI, in a van of some sort.
DE: Ahum
BB: I mean we did, we did get issued with coupons for cigarettes and chocolate but I used to swap my cigarette coupons for chocolate.
BB: Ahum.
DE: Did many of you friends smoke then?
BB: Some of them did but not a lot.
[pause]
DE: You were saying that a lot of the men who worked at Broughton were, were, seemed older. Were the Canadians also a bit older?
BB: No I think they were younger ones.
[pause]
DE: So can you tell me a little bit more about how you met your husband?
BB: It was when he came home from Rhodesia which it was then and he came to see his sister.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And then he, I was visiting her and she had a little boy about seven or eight. Her husband was in the army.
DE: Ahuh.
BB: And that, that time, that evening I was visiting his sister and my husband came and well eventually was my husband, he came, and he walked me back to the camp and I think I saw him a few times before he went back. And he went back to, trying to think where he went back, to a station somewhere in – oh I know where he went back. Is it Fenton?
DE: Ahum.
BB: And I know we were both wondering who would be demobbed first and I think I just managed it but I can’t remember the actual date but I know it was in March.
DE: Ahum. How did that make you feel?
BB: I think that, I think if I’d met him, I’d enjoyed my life in the, in the WAAFs, I might have stayed on.
DE: Ahum.
BB: But my job had been kept open for me but of course I never went back because three months after we got married so I was busy making my wedding dress and my sisters were bridesmaids - made theirs. And as I say the council took over the camp and we went into the WAAF officers’ quarters.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And it was [pause] and while, while we were there it was made into living quarters for us.
DE: Can I just go back a little bit more? You said you met your husband at, I guess, your sister in law’s house.
BB: Yes.
DE: Why were you visiting her?
BB: Because people in the village used to invite people from the camp. I suppose to [pause] they thought they were being kind to us.
DE: Ahum.
[pause]
So you’d go to their, their houses?
BB: Yes.
DE: What would you do there?
BB: Well I think they’d give us a meal [pause] and it was just nice to get away from the, the camp.
DE: Were there, what were the living conditions on the camp like then?
BB: They were quite nice. Fortunately we had our own single beds and they weren’t bunk beds which was nice.
[pause]
I’m not being very helpful am I?
BB: You’re doing wonderfully. I’m asking lots of silly questions.
DE: No you’re not because it it will probably bring some things back to me.
BB: Ahum.
DE: Did you ever get into trouble?
BB: No I [laughs] I behaved myself I think.
DE: Did you know anybody who did get into any trouble?
BB: I don’t think, I don’t think so because there not being many of us with us only being the fifty WAAFs and fifty airmen.
DE: Ahum and that time in Bridgnorth. You got away with it when you snuck back in?
BB: Yes.
[pause]
I know we seemed to have gone miles then before we eventually found our way back in to the camp.
DE: Ahuh. What had you been looking for when you - ?
BB: I think we were just going to get out and, and maybe have a look around. Probably get something to eat.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And where did you say you had your trade training?
DE: At Bridlington.
BB: Bridlington and it was, it was a bad winter and I think hotels were taken over as classrooms.
DE: Ahum.
BB: We’d be sitting in our classrooms and you could see the, which we thought it was ice coming in from off the water and in Bridlington we were in private accommodation there and I was with
[pause]
I can remember the, I know it was 44 Promenade - the name of the, where I was billeted and there were, there were some middle aged ladies [pause] who for a while after I was demobbed I did keep in touch with them ‘cause I remember when we got married they sent us some teacloths as a wedding present.
DE: The people you were billeted with?
BB: Yes.
DE: Ahh so they were quite nice. They were quite nice and friendly?
BB: Yes and I did keep in touch with them but after a while
DE: Ahum
BB: It just, you seem to, it fades away.
DE: Yeah. Did you write a lot of letters then? When you were -
BB: No I used to write home every day, week to my mother and father.
DE: Ahum and did you get a lot of letters from home as well then?
BB: Quite a few.
DE: Did you ask for things? Did they send you - ?
BB: No I can’t remember. I know if I came back after I’d been home on leave I’d have a little case about like that.
DE: Ahum.
BB: In fact I’ve still got it.
DE: Have you?
BB: Because I had two sisters. One stayed at home to look after the farm and one sister joined the nursing reserve.
DE: Ahum.
[pause]
Did you have any brothers?
BB: No.
DE: No.
BB: Just the three sisters. Two sisters.
DE: Were you ever homesick then at any time?
BB: No I can’t say I was. I might have been when I first went but once you’d got there and settled down and you made friends and you thought to yourself well you were in it make the best of it.
DE: Ahum.
BB: I know when I was in Stafford I took home a little kitten. And I know that, that time I did stay somewhere overnight and of course I had this little kitten - had to go somewhere and I thought, I hope it’s still there when I get up in the morning and it was.
DE: Ahum
BB: So I took that home and I think I even took another one home.
[pause]
And I remember one night I couldn’t find anywhere to sleep so I met, I came across some men that were doing fire watch and I told them and so they told me not to worry and I stayed the night with them.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And the next morning I got the train from Lincoln home and I remember my mother and father told me to never do that again but of course in those days you didn’t have to bother about anything happening to you.
[pause]
DE: Ahuh. No, there was far worse things happening all over the place wasn’t there?
BB: There were.
DE: Yeah. How did you feel when the war ended then?
BB: Do you know I know that of course we were at Broughton and we all got on to this sixty foot trailer and we went into the village of Winterton.
DE: Ahum.
BB: And had some drinks as I can remember.
[pause]
DE: Was there some late night partying then?
BB: Yes it was I think.
[pause]
It, it seems so long and long ago that I bet when you’ve gone I shall remember something.
DE: Oh that’s always the way. Yeah. Yeah. That’s always the way.
BB: That’s when I’ll remember something and I know, you know since I heard from you I thought I must remember to think of things.
[pause]
DE: I think you’ve told me an awful lot. You’ve done very well.
BB: Thank you. My friend is hoping to take me to see this in Lincoln.
DE: Oh the memorial?
BB: Yes.
DE: Yeah. What do you think about that?
BB: I think it’s really good that you know that there should be something with so many, there being so many aerodromes in Lincolnshire.
DE: Ahum
[pause]
So you were happy to settle down around here then after the war?
BB: No, I know when my husband said that when he went back to work that he would try and move away from Brigg but of course he was born and bred and we never did move away.
DE: Ahuh.
BB: [unclear] whether it brings me back that I can remember anything.
DE: I’ll just press pause again for a moment.
[pause]
BB: Ok, its recording again. You were going to tell me your service number.
BB: 439661 - that was my service number.
DE: And when, when did you, when were you given the number?
[pause]
BB: Do you know that I can’t remember?
[pause]
Do you know I’m not sure. Before I went to Bridgnorth that
[pause]
I probably went to Lincoln. That’s in the back of my mind
DE: Ahum.
BB: And I might, they might have given it to me there.
[pause]
‘Cause I know I did go with, with somebody else from the department store where I worked in Boston and I never saw here again.
DE: Ahum.
BB: Because she went on a different trade.
[pause]
DE: How did you get to be assigned to become an equipment assistant?
BB: I think it was because I had worked in a shop before. I worked in the millinery department of this shop in Boston.
DE: Ahum
BB: Where you thought nothing of selling hats at four and eleven pence a time and if you sold one for about twelve and eleven pence you thought you’d sold the world nearly.
[pause]
DE: So did they, did they give you a choice of trade or was it just,
BB: No, no I just made up, made up my mind I think. I thought well I think I thought I’d be happy to be an equipment assistant.
DE: Ok. Well I think we’ll end it there. Just another couple of questions again that I should have asked at the beginning. What was your maiden name and your date of birth?
BB: Watkinson W A T K I N S O N.
DE: Thank you.
BB: 28 4 20 so I’m quite an old person.
DE: Ahuh yeah well thank you very much.
BB: I hope I’ve been of some interest.
DE: That’s been smashing. Thank you.
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Barbara BulleymentSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Great Britain. Women's Auxiliary Air ForceGreat Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber CommandDescriptionAn account of the resourceBarbara Bulleyment worked at a department store in Boston until she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and was initially stationed at 16 Maintenance Unit Stafford and then 209 Maintenance Unit at Broughton. She recounts her life as an equipment assistant, how leisure time was spent and about the cook catching a pheasant to eat.CreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceDan EllinPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-06-03ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceJulie WilliamsHeather HughesLanguageA language of the resourceengFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:50:34 audio recordingIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextABulleymentB150603Spatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Great BritainEngland--LincolnshireEngland--StaffordEngland--BroughtonEngland--BostonRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.TypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air Forceground personnelhome frontWomen’s Auxiliary Air Forcehttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/126/20/ACarterRH150629.2.mp38d3dc3e95f435d5e1448963ba9a2e5f5Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceCarter, Robert HaywoodBob CarterRobert CarterRobert Haywood CarterRobert H CarterR H CarterR CarterDescriptionAn account of the resource16 items. The collection contains an oral interview covering childhood and wartime experiences of Robert Haywood "Bob" Carter who was a farm labourer and auxiliary fireman during the war living close to RAF Dunholme Lodge. Documents including identity cards and clothing ration books for Robert Carter and Eva A Haire as well as a victory message from the King and prisoner of war camp money vouchers; newspaper article about an airman reunited with his wife after being a prisoner of war, Photographs of home guard and auxiliary fire service personnel in Welton and Dunholme.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bob Carter and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-06-29IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextCarter, RHRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Transcribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or document[Before the interview commences there is some preliminary chatter; not transcribed]
DE: Right. So, this is an interview with Bob Carter. My name is Dan Ellin. This is for the Bomber Command Digital Archive and we’re actually at Lincoln University. So Bob could you tell me a little bit about your childhood for a start please?
RC: Well I was, actually, I was born at Scampton, just on the Tillbridge Lane in a farm cottage there. But I don’t remember it because in those days seventy percent of village workers, men, worked, um, on the farm. A few came in to work in the factories in Lincoln but it was so labour intensive in those days on the farm and horses of course and um, so the men moved around mostly, very often for another sixpence a week. They’d moved to another place. And this is what happened I think in my life. I was born at Scampton there and we went then to Ingleby which is near Saxilby. I do just remember a little thing happening there actually with, our neighbour had geese and I found a goose egg and I thought I was doing a good thing and was taking this goose egg in to this woman and she sort of screamed at me when she saw me. I didn’t know that the goose, the geese, were actually sitting on these eggs to produce young ones [laughs], others and I dropped the thing because I was trying to shut this big farm gate with one hand and I suppose I’d only be about three years old. Anyway, we moved from there to Scothern. And then Scothern we moved to Welton. And I was five. In that time I was only five and done all those moves and I started school at Welton when I was five years old. So I was there. And then at twelve of course, at twelve years old the war started. And do you want me just to carry on?
DE: Yeah, yeah definitely, yeah.
RC: That was to us kids I suppose which would be wrong we would be all excited because this war was going to start until we, it grew on us that it was something more serious. But they were starting to rebuild Scampton at the time. I think it was about 1936 or somewhere there. Scampton was being rebuilt so we got used to seeing a bit of activity up there. But as, as the war went on then Dunholme Lodge, all these other airfields in Lincolnshire, Dunholme Lodge was made. And I’d, I’d left school, and went to, at fourteen I left school and went to work at Scothern Dairies for the harvest time of that year ‘cause I left at the Easter and then I moved to a, a farm halfway up Welton Cliff Road. Their name was Carter but no relation to me and then he asked me to go to his son’s at Faldingworth and he said he wants a tractor driver and so I went to, from Welton I used to cycle every day to Faldingworth and driving this tractor. And of course I wasn’t old enough to do that really but Jack the boss, he used to give me, if I had to come to Welton to borrow one of their machines, rolls and different things, he used to give me his trilby to wear so the policemen might think it was him on the, on the tractor. It never, it never dawned on me that’s why he was doing it at the time but as the years went by I realised and I never got stopped anyway.
So, but I had a year to - before I went there I was working on the farm up on Welton Cliff there and of course it’s horses was the main thing. In those days farms were known by how many horses. It would be a six horse farm or a ten horse farm or that sort of thing. Tractors were just coming in. They had a couple of tractors but I had to work and when the potatoes were being lifted I had to drive the carts up and down the fields to the pickers and I was only of course about fifteen then. And I had to yoke these horses out in a morning and some of them were quite tall and one, a mare, she was very awkward because when she saw me coming with her collar she would hold her head right high up and there was me trying to reach her so I thought, “Oh I’ll beat you to that. I’ll get in the manger at the front and then I’ll be able to reach.” So I threw this collar into the manger and I clambered in to it, into the manger, and yes, it did happen, as you might be thinking, yes, the mare backed off away from me and I couldn’t reach her then. But it only happened once and I never forgot that incident but I used to have six to do in the morning, six horses to yoke up and get them to the fields up as far as Scampton to the A15 there. His land went all that way and I was involved in that, then I got helping the shepherd in the winter time with some sheep out on a turnip field in all weathers. We just had to get these turnips up and cut up and feed, feed the sheep and um, eventually I had a chance to go to Dunholme Lodge Farm to White’s Dunholme Lodge Farm.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And I, so I moved employment and went to Dunholme Lodge Farm. I stayed there right on, right through the wartime. So and in this time they’d bought, they made the land at Dunholme Lodge into an airfield. And I lived on the road from Welton to Scampton so looking out our, our front room we looked straight up the runway of Dunholme Lodge. You could see, in the far distance you could see Lincoln Cathedral.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And all that and so we were seeing things first hand really and the, all the administration offices were all on the outskirts of the farm, on Dunholme Lodge Farm, so we saw quite a lot going on there in the daytime.
DE: Do you know how the farmer felt about losing some of his land to the airfield?
RC: No ‘cause it happened when I went there so I don’t know. I was, I was thinking about that only the other day. They must have took about half of his land.
DE: Ahum.
RC: That he had. When I think what he had was down towards Dunholme and then we got the land back after the war. But they must have taken half of his land. Yeah.
DE: So you’re saying you were living at the end of the runway there. Can you, any, any stories you can, you can tell?
RC: Yes. We, we were supplied with a metal table in, in our kitchen because we were within, I think it was eight hundred yards of the perimeter of Dunholme Lodge. So we were allowed to have a better shelter, bomb shelter.
DE: Ahum.
RC: Which was very handy until you’d knock your knees against it [laughs]. Being steel it didn’t give up, give way at all. But eventually they asked if we would give it up. They wanted to send them to London because London was getting all the bombing and so we did give it up eventually and went back to a wooden table.
But when they were taking off northwards they were coming almost straight for our house we were the last house up that road at the time. Today there’s quite a lot of houses gone beyond it now
DE: Ahum
RC: All at the back there as well. It was all fields and they were so low we used to wave to the pilot and the co-pilot, the flight engineer as they went past they were so low. We could see them.
And my mother used to take in, we had a spare bedroom. Eventually my mother used to take in the airman’s wives that had came to see their husband for a weekend or week or something like that. And she said, “I won’t take flyers in case anything happened“ but she eventually did and she took this couple in actually. Young couple, hadn’t been married long and they were from Ipswich and he was, he was in 44 squadron which was a Rhodesian squadron and the 44 was stationed there at one time and he was in - their lettering was KM and he was in S. S for Sugar. And she the, the briefing room used to be down near what is known now as William Farr School. Down there their briefing office and so she used to walk with him around with him there when he went for his briefing in the afternoon and then they’d be away at night. And I was in the local fire service and I had to do every fifth night. I had to do duty and one night I was going home next morning at 6 o’clock, had to get ready and go to work on the farm and I was watching them coming in and of course they were quite low. They were going, they were landing north to south in the morning and I saw KMB go past.
DE: Ahum.
RC: Quite plain to see because they were very low so you couldn’t miss it. Anyway when I got around the back the back of our house going in the back door Kath was looking out the bedroom window, his wife and I said, “Has he come in yet?” She said, “He’s just gone in.” and I said, “No that was B. That wasn’t S”. She said, “No it was S.” so I thought well I’m not arguing. I had a good plain view of it, broad view of it and so I left it at that.
DE: Ahum.
RC: Off I went to work at the farm. Then during the morning I had reason to go around into our barn at Dunholme Lodge for something and just over the fence was all the administration offices of the RAF and such like and I saw this officer with this woman. Be about, getting on for a hundred yards away from me I think and I thought oh that does look like Kath. Anyway we’d finished work at 12 o’clock on a Saturday so I went home 12 o’clock and I knew as soon as I walked in our back door there was something was wrong I thought. So I said to my mother what’s wrong. She said, “Frank’s hasn’t come back”. I said oh. She said, “No they’ve been and picked her up.” I said, “Oh I knew that was her.” I said I saw her from the farmyard. I said I thought that looks like Kath and they’d been and collected her and she stayed with us a little while after that and then we found out he’d been taken prisoner
And eventually it was getting, this was getting on late in the war of course and they escaped and got home again but they, they escaped into, into Russian lines ‘cause they came down to see us then after he’d got home again and they said they’d escaped into the Russian lines and that was worse than being with the Germans. They nearly got shot with the Russians, convincing them who they were. And one newspaper had it, the headline - Home By Way of Odessa - and that was the way they’d come home and he told us, he said, he didn’t tell us they were attacking Stuttgart. I never, as we were talking after ‘cause they came up and had a holiday with us and he said he doesn’t know if he was thrown out, blown out or how he got out of his aircraft all he remembered was landing in this street in Stuttgart and the SS women bent over him, questioned him, getting to know where he was from all the rest of it before he came to his senses and all the rest of it and they would never let on and when he was a prisoner of war he was in solitary confinement because he just wouldn’t talk and they used to bring him out every morning the Germans did in the office, into the office and quiz him and said to him one morning, “Ah Sergeant Walters. Now then, let’s see, Scampton wasn’t it?” and he thought wow you’re only two fields away but he said I never would let on where he was and Dunholme Lodge was only a couple of fields from Scampton anyway and he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t tell them where he was from.
But they came and had this holiday with us and I had the good fortune ‘cause I went - going back to the farm.
DE: Ahum
RC: You couldn’t change jobs other than farm. Well you could if you wanted to go in to the army. If you went, if you left the farm you got automatically got called up in to the army.
DE: Ahum.
RC: But I think it was about 1947 when that was lifted and I couldn’t wait to get off to try and get a job with a bit better wage to it. And I started truck driving.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And that really was the basis of my working life through was on the trucks so I used to get down to Ipswich when Fysons had a factory here in Lincoln and we used to take stuff from there to Fysons in Ipswich and I used to call and see Kath and Franl and stop the night with them sometime if I wasn’t going to get home again. Stopped the night with them.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And he’d got, he was in to civvy street then of course and he was making himself a motorbike and sidecar in his shed. Building this all up and everything and then he contacted us one week and he said, “You’ll never guess.” So we said, “What?” He’d got this thing done but he couldn’t get it out his shed. He had to take the side of his shed off or something to get the thing out of his, out of his shed yeah. But yes I haven’t heard from them for years. I don’t suppose they’re alive. They were older than me so.
DE: Ahum.
RC: I suppose they’ve passed on now. Yeah.
DE: But you struck up a friendship while they were living with you and carried on.
RC: Oh yes. Yes, we, we, they used to come. We used to go down to the Nelson at Dunholme. They liked that seemed to like that pub and we used to go down there with them and yes. So, well I think at the time she was only about eighteen but I have a newspaper, the Daily Mirror, from that time and they are on the front page, Kath and Frank are, and the Mirror paid for them a weekend in London and it was saying about how he’d been a prisoner of war and such like and they paid for the to have the weekend in London for them both, bought her an outfit and top seat in a, in a theatre. Top seat - seventeen and sixpence. That was the price of a top seat in those days. Yeah they gave them weekend out and then they came up to see us and we couldn’t believe it. My sister, a younger sister of mine went to our door that morning and picked up the paper – the Mirror.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And she’s looking at it walking back up the hallway and said, “That’s Frank and Kath,” and blimey we are famous yeah.
DE: Smashing. You say you were in a, in a bit of a hurry to get out of farm work as soon as you could. Was, was -
RC: Well the wages weren’t good.
DE: Ahuh.
RC: The wages weren’t good and there was better, the war was over and so there were better opportunities about plus there was no fear of getting pulled in to the army or something like that.
DE: Ahum.
RC: If, if, if you left. You could leave the farm but they’d have you for your fitness and what not straightaway and have you in in no time. Or I think it was coalmines as well where they were, they didn’t have to enlist without they were called up. So, yes so I travelled the length and the breadth of this country and it came in handy for some people. People started to go more around the country for their holidays and people, see they didn’t have cars. In my younger days there, there was only two people in Welton had cars. Nobody else had a car.
DE: Ahuh.
RC: But people got their own cars and people very often would come to me, hey Bob how do you get to so and so wherever they were going holidaying and I was often having people coming on a Friday or something and say oh tomorrow we’re going to - where’s the best way to go sort of thing.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And this was of course before motorways. Even the A1 was only just an ordinary road. It wasn’t even a dual carriageway.
DE: Yeah.
RC: Dual carriageways became a new thing to have dual carriageways before motorways and such like.
DE: So who would be the two people in the village that had a car then?
RC: There was a shop. Well they had a van. Well they had a van. It’s now the co-op at Welton. It was some people called Applewhite.
DE: Ahum.
RC: They had, they had a van and the people who had a car - the post office did. I think, can’t remember what they did? I think another family did have a car I suppose he was business of some sort. But our job when we left school used to be, “Don’t run off you lads. I want a push with my car” and that used to be and we’d push him from the school was, it’s flats now I think almost on Welton Green and that was the only school there was in Welton. Just this one building. So I did all my education there and the woman who had the post office at Welton, her name was Crosby but she eventually married George Howton [?] who were our teacher and it was him that wanted a push with his car and we’d push him right down as far as Hackthorn Lane before the thing struck up and he daren’t stop it again so he just left us all to walk back. We tried to get out of school quick before he mentioned this big word, “Don’t go away lads,” you know. Oh dear. Here we go again. Yeah. Good old days.
DE: Marvellous.
RC: Yeah.
DE: So you, you were showing us earlier some photographs which you’ve kindly let us scan for the archive. There’s one with some people in the Home Guard and one with, with Auxiliary Firemen. Can you tell us a little about those pictures?
RC: Yes well like I was showing you the photographs of dad’s armies as it’s called, the Home Guard were called. My dad was a corporal and our next door neighbour was also a corporal and then there were others. And there was one officer. Oh the village blacksmith he was a sergeant. But we were doing, it would be for November memorial I should think. There was this parade on at Welton and the Home Guard from around about, from Dunholme and all those places I think they came as well but my dad and Harry Lawrence next door they were going to be guard of honour at the cenotaph at Welton and they were the only two with rifles anyway. And so Harry being smaller, a bit smaller than my dad came around ‘cause he lived next door to us and he was concerned that they would get it together when they sloped arms and presented arms you see and my dad said to him, my dad had been in the army when he was younger and he said, “Don’t worry I’ll count to you”. He said, “I’ll say one two three one two three without anybody really hearing,” he said so they’d got this all worked out. So they thought they’d give it a try in our kitchen. So they stood there side by side and my dad said, “One two three one two three,” and they went to slope arms, of course they had to do it all properly. They had to have, they had to have the old bayonets fixed as well. The old type bayonets. I don’t know, about thirteen inches long, and Harry stuck his straight through our kitchen window - ceiling. And as the, as the thing came on television what not - Dad’s Army I think about that occasion. I thought, oh so funny. They needn’t have to have the bayonet fixed on. It didn’t matter at that time. But they had to everything proper yeah. Oh, so funny that was.
DE: Ahum.
RC: Yeah.
DE: The other photo you had was the Auxiliary Fire Service.
RC: Yes the fire service. We were, we had two of the places at the, down in the backstreet. One for the pump and the other for the, for the room where we, well the beds in it and the table, what not where we - I joined the fire service there. You had to be the Home Guard or something. It wasn’t everybody had a fire service in the village. We had one so I joined the fire service.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And we went out to one or two crashes and what not. We went out on to Dunholme Lodge when it was being, apparently they were laying the runway at the time but of course there wasn’t much light to be going on and there was an Irishman there, I think it was an Irishman and I think he’d been the night watchman or something over all the goings on there but something had caught fire and the fire engine had, oh it was the RAF the RAF had got one there that’s right. And they’d used foam on this fire and -
DE: Ahum.
RC: We got there and this chap was right panicking. He’d lost his watch. His pocket watch and of course you’d got blobs of foam about and he was trying to find tis pocket watch. Well I thought he wasn’t bothered about the fire or anything it was his watch he was looking for. Yeah. He didn’t find it while I was there anyway. He lost his, why they put foam. Water would have done but yeah there was quite a few Dads Army type of things happened then when you look back. No wonder they made a programme of it really. It was silly things did happen yeah.
DE: So how did being an auxiliary fireman fit in with, with working on the farm?
RC: It had to fit in. That’s it. We used to be on every fifth night from 10 o’clock till six in the morning. Then you’d got to go to work. If, you know like if there’d been a red warning and you’d stayed you couldn’t go to bed but it was alright you could go to bed if there was no red warning.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And we were attached to Charles Warner’s had a garage at the top Wragby Road, top of Lindum Hill, Wragby Road area and we were attached to them and we were supposed to let them know if we were turning out. I think really we were supposed to wait until they said we could go but we found out if we did that we’d never go. They’d never let us go. They’d say oh we’ll go first if they need two pumps we’ll call you out. So when we did have to turn out we’d wait while they’d gone then we’d ring Lincoln and tell them it was urgent and we’d turned else we’d never have got out.
RC: We went to Hull one night.
DE: Really?
RC: The old way when you had to go around Gainsborough and around
DE: Oh of course, yeah. Yeah.
RC: Oh I tell you what. That night, that was frightening. Really frightening. Terrible experience, that, I mean. It really took a pounding Hull did. And not knowing the place as well.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And it sounds silly really but one of the, well he was our boss really of the crew I was with [?] he said, “Have a look down there and see if you can see a hydrant”. Well a hydrant in those days I think they’re on the floor now. There used to be a yellow plate on the wall and you knew that the hydrant then was four feet from that. And the silly thing was that the ships that was in the dock and all the the dock warehouses were blazing away and we couldn’t get near. All that water and we couldn’t get near it cause the ships were burning anyway and so he said see if there’s a hydrant around there and I’m looking for this for the plates on the wall or something and I just – “there aint one around here” and then a voice in the dark, a voice in the dark alleyway said, “Isn’t there one around here”, and I looked - it made me jump at first and there was this, a woman’s voice and it was this young, I don’t know how old she’d be - eighteen or nineteen nearly about my age and she said, “Our house has been hit” and I said well, “you didn’t ought to be here. There’s a police station down there”, I told her where the police station was. I said go there.
Anyway, when I went, I’m looking around and realised that our crowd had gone.
DE: Ahum
RC: And I thought now where has everybody gone? Here I am. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know the place at all and just down the road was a fire station so I went down and I said that I was with Welton I said and they said oh they’ve gone down to a wood yard down, I forget the road now to me it didn’t mean a thing and he said alright you can stay here and take messages. I thought -charming. I don’t even know the place and I’ve got to go to other pumps and I didn’t have to go with any luckily enough and after about an hour our pump turned up. They came back from this wood yard and so and we came home.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And like I say when you got home you still had to go to work.
DE: Ahum.
RC: You know. That’s how it was in those days. Yeah.
DE: Yeah so what so what so what sort of pump did you have and how many people?
RC: Foster Gwynne, Foster Gwynne pump. Made in Lincoln. They was mainly Coventry Climax pumps and we used to have competitions sometimes and they would, they would seize up sometimes some of these Coventry Climaxes would and they’d overheat and our Foster Gwynne’s would be whooping it out - two channels sixty pound pressure. Brilliant little pump it was. It was made in Lincoln that was.
DE: Ahum
RC: And I often wonder who finished up getting that. And most of the pumps the Coventry Climaxes they were painted grey or red. Ours was its original chrome and everything and that’s why we used to go around on a Saturday afternoon polishing it. We were proud of our little pump.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And they couldn’t do anything about it but they were a bit jealous of it I think some of the bigger fire stations that we had this little pump. Yes we used to have some good fun with that. Yeah.
DE: And how many people were you? Were you, were -
RC: It was a five man pump that was.
DE: Right.
RC: Yeah. It was. I had to take, it was my job to take the first roll of hose and you’d stand there with your arm out while the number two came and grab it as it came past, connect it then I had to at the back of the pump get the third hose, length of hose.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And the, and the hand pump and run off down with that.
DE: And what sort of vehicle pulled the thing?
RC: Oh a Daimler. I don’t know whose it had been but obviously it had taken over by the government obviously. Yeah we had this Daimler. Lovely car
DE: Ahum
RC: By jove it was. Yeah we had that at Welton yeah, yeah.
DE: How did, how did you feel being in the fire service then?
RC: Pardon?
DE: How did you feel being in the fire service?
RC: Well, we, we felt one up on the Home Guard anyway. At least we were one point higher than them. Not a lot was said on that line really I suppose. Its age wise you know. I was lucky that I enquired there and they said yeah we need another. We need another one in ours to make our numbers up for the pump and you see they needed at least well needed about thirty all together. They needed twenty five for the pump people and then there was always somebody would have to stay on the phone if you turned out.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And that’s how we got by and like I was saying before we, we in the fire service we got paid for it. I can’t remember what it was but we used to get it monthly. But it was, especially if you worked on the farm it was very nice. It was, I can’t remember now probably a fiver if that much but it was always appreciated.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And then there was a parade or something come along so we were having a bit of a practice at marching in the back street of Walton. Always having a bit of little laugh between us about it and then we did an about turn and there was two of the officers from Lincoln [laughs]. They halted us when we got to them. They tore us a strip off and said you’ll be better than them at Buckingham palace by the time they finished with us so we were put through our paces a bit but I think there was some big parade going to be in the village and we was going to turn out as well, we had to have to turn out as well with them yeah.
DE: Ahum.
RC: Yeah there was some good times on it yeah.
DE: Did you get much training?
RC: No, no you didn’t. There really wasn’t too much training. One thing you had to do you had to be able to carry from off the first floor with a ladder up to the first, up to the second floor. You had to be able to carry an eleven stone person up on his back down this and I remember I did it.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And I was only about eighteen but you know I worked on the farm throwing sacks of corn about and you were used to, you know and if the person you’re carrying just stays limp and doesn’t try and do it for you sort of thing.
DE: Ahum.
RC: It wasn’t too bad. And we were talking about the rectory had a big place like that where we were, a flat roof and so we was able to do it from that yeah. And he had some nice pear trees in that rectory as well. They were very nice. So sometimes if the red warning was on, we couldn’t go to bed so we used to walk around and have a pear.
DE: Ahum.
RC: Yeah.
DE: Can you explain red warning for us?
RC: Well that’s when there’s a raid on sort of thing and the night that Lincoln Nurses’ Home got hit that was one Sunday teatime.
DE: Ahum.
RC: I was at home at about half past five. We heard this explosion even at, even at Welton and we came out and stood outside our back door which was Hackthorn side sort of thing and to anybody listening it was Hackthorn out our back door, out that way but we heard this German and looked up and it was just broken cloud up above but I did just see it.
DE: Ahum.
RC: Go from cloud to cloud sort of thing but they did get it down over Grimsby. But the, the Kirton Lindsey was fighters and oh five minutes more after that there was the spitfires err Hurricanes going towards Lincoln from Kirton Lindsey way and you felt so helpless. You felt like saying, “Oi they’ve gone that way,” and anyway he was shot down near Grimsby. Yeah. I remember that happening. We didn’t know while later on that it was near the Nurse’s Home where the bomb went off but there was, it was obvious that Ruston’s, they, I mean the Germans knew about Ruston’s and that’s why but they used to say that lord Haw-haw used to come on and break into English radio, Lord Haw-haw and he, for Germany and he said one night we shall not bomb Lincoln Cathedral because our pilots know the way to Sheffield when they get to Lincoln Cathedral. I remember that happening yeah. He’d break into the, I think it was the 9 o’clock news on the radio.
DE: Ahum
RC: Not every night but it made people put the radio in case he did, hear what he had to say. Yeah. Lord Haw-haw yeah.
DE: Did you ever witness any aeroplane crashes then when you were in the fire service?
RC: The one, that one on, on at Scothern on a Saturday afternoon. There was a Lancaster at, oh three parts of the way up that cliff road Welton Cliff Road toward Scampton, a Lancaster and I think he must have run out of fuel. No fire or anything and he was just on top of a hedge in a way, just run into a hedge. Another, another half a mile he’d have been at Scampton sort of thing but I think they must, but they took it to bits and took it away again.
DE: Ahum.
RC: Yeah that was about the only actual fires that we, we, we saw in our time yeah.
DE: You were talking earlier about another? Another crash that you’d attended?
[pause]
Where there was another crew as well, another fire crew as well.
RC: Oh that was when the, the RAF crew.
DE: Ahum.
RC: That was the one at Scothern.
DE: Right you talked.
RC: If we’d known where they were from Welton they said Dunholme but in those days it was Dunholme Lodge was the thing that stuck in your mind.
DE: Ahum.
RC: But Dunholme village wasn’t that way at all. If we’d known it was actually, it would look like Dunholme cause Scothern from that angle was beyond Dunholme.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And if that woman had said, you know it looked like Dunholme. Dunholme was there and Dunholme Lodge was over on the right. We would have been straight there, we’d have been there by the time we were going to Dunholme Lodge and finding them still gawping there down the road at all the smoke.
DE: Ahuh.
RC: We’d have been, we’d have been there but we couldn’t have done anything.
DE: Ahum
RC: The biggest pieces was the wheels.
DE: Really?
RC: There was just nothing left of it. It hit the high cables.
DE: Ahum.
RC: It hit the yeah hit the high cables and it just blew it to pieces. I don’t think there was a bomb on board and been blown to pieces that way. It might have had but I didn’t hear exactly. I know it had hit the cables.
DE: Ahum.
RC: Yeah and they were all killed on it yeah.
DE: Talking about some, some probably happier times did you, talking about seeing certain, certain people?
RC: Oh yeah, yeah well at the Black Bull at Welton was the nearest pub for them just out of Scampton and I was at the green one, near the green, Black Bull area one night and this car pulled up and these two young RAF fellows got out and a dog with them and off they went in to the Black Bull for a drink. And then this, this raid took place down to the dams.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And it became more, it was all in the news quite a while every day about this busting the dams and dambusters and all this, that and the other and Gibson’s photograph became more prominent in the papers and then one day I’m looking at the paper and I looked at this, this photo and I thought I don’t believe this and it was Gibson and another man. Looking at him this was one of the photos of the fellows I’d seen that day outside the Black Bull.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And the dog would have been Nigger. I mean it fussed around me and I thought nothing of it at the time. I mean I liked dogs and thought of nothing but you know I can do it, I in my own mind I can say I was stood near him but it’s only as he’s became more popular, his picture was always in the paper it suddenly struck me I thought he was one of them blokes.
DE: Ahum.
RC: Yeah. And then they was on about when his dog got run over. His, his his batman was also his truck driver he got fourteen day [unclear] for that.
DE: Did he?
RC: Yeah. We used to get, we used to know this from some of the lads, ordinary lads that used to come into the Black Bull used to play darts with or whatever, football or something used to play football with us yeah and they said it was outside. One airman, and I thought he said one of the airmen he’d been to when he was getting his crews together and he’d been to the middle another airfield forgotten the name of it just south of Lincoln anyway but he was I was just been reading a book the other day and it said outside Scampton main gates.
DE: Ahum
RC: And I thought these blokes had told me at the time it was outside this other camp main gates that he was getting his crews together ready for this raid but he said he got two weeks [unclear] for letting the dog get out the - and that was another thing, they used to have open days at Scampton and Hemswell.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And some of the lads would say, “Are you coming on Saturday Bob?” and I’d say, “Oh yeah of course and I said yeah see Nigger’s grave” and they said, “You won’t. This year you’ve got to go a different way.” ‘Cause I knew Scampton, I saw it built and everything and used to go past it a lot and they were saying, they said to , “You know last year when you went this way, that way,” and I said, “Yeah.”, “Oh you’re not doing that this year you’ve got to inside the main gates and you’ve got to go left,” and they was telling me where and I knew where they meant you see and I said oh we shan’t go past Nigger’s grave then and they said, “You will. We’ve moved it”. And all they’d done was pull the cross up and put it somewhere else and then there was a bit back in the Echo I was reading they was on about where was Nigger buried and I thought I bet nobody really knows - this is between me and you – I thought nobody really knows where that dog was buried. They just used to move the jolly cross to suit them. Yeah
DE: Have to get Time Team to
RC: Yeah.
DE: To come up.
RC: Oh dear yeah but yes those were good days out they were yeah ‘cause they, when they first opened I was, I used to be errand boy for a local butcher at Welton before I left school. Used to go before school in the morning, after school at night and all day on a Saturday and me and there was the butcher and he had the man that worked for him Ken [unclear]
DE: Ahum.
RC: And Ken used to do Scampton and Hemswell married quarters. There was eleven officers houses at Hemswell and err Scothern err Scampton.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And thirty four ordinary house and Hemswell was just the same they had thirty four and we used to ‘cause you see rationing was on so you had to be joined with a butcher somewhere.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And we used to do them on a Saturday morning and another lad who worked for them for a bit he used to go with the boss himself and he used to do Welton and Dunholme. They used to come back for dinner and then after dinner the boss and Ken who I’d been with they used to go to Snarford and Foldingworth and out that way on the butchers round with the joint sort of thing, the rations and that sort of thing and me and the other lad used to stop and used to scrub the shop and the slaughterhouse.
DE: Ahum.
RC: Cause they used to slaughter a lot of their own animals themselves there and I used to get six shillings a week for that and then when I was leaving school he wanted me to go full time. Oh and we used to have my meals there as well on a Saturday but he wanted me to go there full time and, and have my meals at home - for eight shillings. And I was getting, and my dad said you get a pound on a farm and that’s how I come to really go on a farm. That’s all they used to pay you for that. There wasn’t a joint of meat I didn’t know. I used to make stones of sausages and they were renowned for their sausage at Welton, their sausage. I can say their name now cause they’re not alive now – Applewhite. He was renowned for his sausages. His Lincolnshire sausages. I made stones of the things before I went to school in the morning.
And then there was one morning I got an order he wanted me to take to the farmer at Dunholme - a Mr Lilley and so off I went on my bike. This was before I went to school and there’s me going down down there and while I’m going down there Ryland towards Dunholme and there was a Hampden cause this was before Lancaster.
DE: Yeah.
RC: And I thought what’s he doing just going around and around like that. And then I saw a parachute come out of it and I thought wow a chap’s jumped out of that and I eventually got to Lilley’s down at Dunholme and they used to, nobody locked the doors, they just used to shout come in and I knocked on the door and come in and I went in and there was an airman sat there.
DE: Ahum.
RC: With his hand wrapped up and it wasn’t him that I’d seen jump out the aircraft but he had jumped out of it. And he’d landed in the hedge of this farmhouse and he’d hurt his thumb.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And what had, what had happened was that the Hampden couldn’t get it’s wheels down but they jumped out and then he got his wheels down and he landed safely at Scampto. Yeah but the crew had all, but the pilot, had jumped out and he was, what he was doing as well he was using fuel up as well and then he would belly land it somewhere. That was the plan.
DE: Ahum.
RC: But then his wheels came down so he went to Scampton and landed yeah but the chap sat in the house waiting for the ambulance to come and whoever was going to come like to him and I think he’d broke his thumb or something yeah. So you saw a bit of life at times.
DE: Going back to the dams raid from Scampton.
RC: Ahum.
DE: The first time I met you, you told me a story about seeing them take off.
RC: Oh yeah. Yeah we had a like we’ve had lately a lovely, lovely day you know the weather had been absolutely perfect and me and the lad next door to us George Lawrence I bumped into him only a couple of weeks ago in Gainsborough market and we remarked about this story which I’m about to tell you. So we stood there talking away and suddenly we heard the familiar noise of these Lancasters and we looked towards Scampton and there’s these three Lancasters flying ever so low and weren’t attempting to gain height at all. They were just, and we were almost speechless seeing them so low and they went by and George said to me, “Look they’re sending them barrels of beer now.” and I said, “Yeah.” and off they went to over between Welton and Hackthorn and ever so low not trying to get any higher. Course then when we heard the news and as time went on we found it was a low level job all the way anyway and we realised that what we’d seen were the bombs, the different type of bombs that they’d got on yeah. But we never, we never saw any more take off that night from Scampton although there was more went but I don’t know. I don’t know which way those three had took off because the way they were coming there wasn’t a runway facing that way so they must have took off somewhere, circled around and then got the height they wanted to be and that was it and off they went. Yeah. Saw that quite clear, yeah.
DE: Well that’s smashing. I think I’ve well I’m almost running out of questions. What do you, what are your feelings about the way bomber command has been remembered over the last seventy years?
RC: Oh I think it’s very good I, I I’ve got loads of books on it and there’s, there’s, there was three books came out about, with all the crashes that happened, where they’d flown from, where they’d been going to. I can’t remember the name of them. Have you seen them?
DE: I think so, yeah.
RC: But we later on in life we lived in Lincoln and we had a bed and breakfast place and we had these books and sort of things out.
DE: Ahum.
RC: Not to be taken away. Then we suddenly find that I think its number three book was missing. We must have had somebody staying with us saw something in it that rung a bell with them, with, about someone they knew probably and they must have took it home.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And they’re out of print now. They’re out of print. I couldn’t get another one.
DE: Oh dear.
RC: I went to Ruddocks and they said oh they’re out of print now. So I’ve got the other two which, you know and I often get them out. I think oh yeah I remember that one. They’d ring a bell with me but yes cause it was sad about that because any of those Lancaster books I have to refrain myself a bit now ‘cause the bookshelves tend to get rather full you know but yeah I love reading about them.
DE: Yeah.
DE: Yeah so these books did you manage to go through them and find crashes that you knew about?
RC: Yeah, yeah two like I say two of them, the other one someone took it home anyway with them and if you notice at the time you could say something you know, have you pick a book up by the way.
DE: Yeah.
RC: So it was more sad because I couldn’t get another.
DE: Ahum.
RC: I don’t know how much they were at the time but that weren’t the point if I could have got another but no so I’ve just got the two of them. I’ve got loads of other sort as well about the Lancasters but those have got, they’ve the crew in and 44 squadron they were Rhodesian squadron actually at Dunholme Lodge. I think they came from, I think they came from up Brigg side some, not Brigg near to Cleethorpes side somewhere like that. Ludford, not Ludford but somewhere like up there I think they came.
DE: Ahum.
RC: To Dunholme Lodge oh and then after they’d left Dunholme Lodge we got, we got the Polish people. Now that was an experience that was.
DE: Really.
RC: Oh had a laugh with them at Welton we used to have. On bikes a lot of them.
DE: Yeah.
RC: And of course they didn’t, Poland didn’t ride on the same side of the road as we did but that didn’t matter to them they – dear, dear me. We, yeah, they used to be all over the road with their bikes and didn’t get involved with the local people very much. Anyway, us lads was at the fish shop one night. I mean Welton now has a good name, it’s always had a good name, Welton fish but anyway I went at the fish shop one night and this young oh and the I’ll say this the WAAFs Polish WAAFs most of them most could go on a slimming course I’ll put it that way and we were at the fish shop this night and this really smart girl WAAF came along. Polish. And she just wanted a bag of chips and there was three or four of us and I was always up for a dare and anyway so one of them said I bet you don’t speak to her when she comes out so I said I bet bet I dare so anyway out she came and I said I’ll push your bike and you eat your chips and I tried to explain to her that and she just sort of smiled and I walked with her bike and at Welton village hall used to be the that’s where Polish people were stationed when they come and Welton well not the old one, it’s a new one but it used to be used to be WAAF community meeting place where that was and we got nearly there and thought I’d better not go any further. I was about fifty, a hundred yards away from there and I sort of indicated to her that I wasn’t coming any further and so off she went and I went back and having a good laugh we was you see and anyway after that I got talking to must have been some English airmen that was there and I never saw this WAAF again you see. I never saw her again and they said she’d been moved and they said oh if they know that she’d been talking to an Englishman they’d move her to another camp ‘cause I never saw her again.
DE: Ahum.
RC: I saw some that I used to see regularly you know but that one, she was really a lovely looking lass and you know quite slim compared to what all the others were yeah and they reckoned yeah reckoned they had moved her to another camp.
DE: Crikey.
RC: Yeah so yeah but yeah some these things you suddenly remember again. You know.
DE: Ahum.
RC: Memories.
DE: The other things that you brought with you are some Italian POW.
RC: Oh yes they were, they were two Italians. We had two Italian prisoners who worked with us at Dunholme Lodge and there’s a cottage down there now it’s used as a memorial place.
DE: Ahum.
RC: For Dunholme I don’t know if you’ve been to it or not down at the bottom of the farmyard yeah and they, there was three of them. Two smallish fellas - Italians and this really biggish bloke and he only had to do two hours a day on the farm and quite honestly we could do without him. He was useless. Anyway and there would be I think they came from Kirton Lindsay there were two camps there was a German and an Italian camp there. Anyway I got to be sort of spokesman for these two lads, got to understand them a little bit and any problems they had I’d see David Whites and you know tell him. Anyway they, they were saying, and they good little workers as well they were and they were saying something about the food and they said would I ask David Whites if he could send him back to camp and they would look after themselves. So righto so when I saw the boss I said I don’t reckon they get much food I reckon. And he used to walk into Lincoln this fellow did you see at the weekend and they reckon he knew a woman in Lincoln and he was taking her food. So anyway David Whites got it done and they took him back to camp and these two lads managed on, and do you know the three months they really were like little pigs. You know they really did put some weight on Gino [?[ [unclear] and Mosello[?] [unclear]
DE: Ahum.
RC: Mosello Ovello [?] [unclear] Italy – that’s, that was his address. I used to write to him when they went back after the war and I went, as I say they stayed until the end of the war until they were repatriated. And then they have open days at Dunholme Lodge now. Their gardens. About twice a year and the spring and over the years David Whites married, he married a vet. His wife was a vet. She’s died now. But one of the Italians was so excited one day he was on about Mr Whites. And I said yeah? That’s the vet’s car. He’d seen them around one of the crew yards plenty kissy kissy he said [laughs] and eventually he did marry the vet and now he’s got, he’s got two, I don’t know if he’s got a daughter but he’s got two sons and they still live up there. And I thought when had this place, remembrance place, bottom of the farm and opened up the, the farm and I thought I’ll have to have a look around there one of these times so I went one year. Well when they found out that I knew these Italian prisoners I’m the only one now alive that worked there, you see, you know.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And when they knew that I was, I knew these Italians and reeled off the address like I did you just now I said yeah I used to write to them. Oh they thought it was marvellous they did.
DE: Ahuh.
RC: And you know I’m sort of very friendly with them now and go up and look around and they always get on and say we never met anyone who knew these Italian prisoners. I said oh yeah I remember them coming, I remember them when they went I said.
DE: Ahum.
RC: So I was there until I was about twenty five or six something like that I worked there. They were nice lads and one of them wanted me to go to Italy and marry his sister or something yeah but Marcello Orvello [?] yes they were nice lads and they used to, one of them used to come to the dances at Welton and I used to say to them they’d be no bother to you if you’re no bother to them.
DE: Ahuh.
RC: I was sort of in charge of, no I wasn’t nobody bothers them. And [?] used to love it, coming to the village dance at Welton but they used to say you remember [unclear] I used to smoke then they used to bring me their full packet of cigarettes cause they, neither of them smoked then like.
DE: Ahum.
RC: And with this here other fella and it turned out actually when he was taken back to camp they said to me used to say to me the next day I wasn’t to bring any food with me, good eat with them. [unclear] they called food [unclear] you had to eat with them so I said to me mother I didn’t need a pack up.
DE: Ahum.
RC: Marcello [?] and [unclear] want me to have my dinner with them. What I’m going to get I don’t know and I went with them and they did it all over the open fire in a frying pan sort of thing. Everything went into this frying pan sort of thing and they also showed me the room he had, the other bloke had a room on the right. They was upstairs and on the back of the door was a swastika of the other fella.
DE: Ahum of the other guy, right.
RC: They got rid of. Yeah and he was a German but they were Italian so they must have been at Kirton Lindsay camp both of them.
DE: So they were living in a farm building?
RC: Yeah oh yes it’s still there now and it’s used a remembrance place now. Yeah
DE: And what sort of work were they doing on the farm?
RC: Same work yeah what we did.
DE: Ahum.
RC: Yeah one of them used to drive one of the tractors in the end.
RC: And they had quite a bit of freedom to come and go.
DE: Oh yeah yeah they were no bother them lads weren’t no. But yes they told me their address and if ever I was in Italy. They told me around to visit. I’ve been to Italy just over in to Italy once on a holiday like but I never got around to going. Well actually [?] left me a photograph, he said it was his sister, come and marry my sister you know. And I haven’t got it. I don’t know where it went to, yeah.
RC: But there wasn’t any sort of hard feelings with them being in the village.
DE: No, no, no, no, no we had some good times together but, but the Whites were over the moon because they’d met someone who was still alive that worked on the farm and knew these Italians. Their dad used to tell them about these Italian prisoners oh yes [unclear] and [unclear]. [unclear]. I said I wrote letters there. They didn’t get there. I used to get them back. The trouble was when I got a reply I couldn’t read it and in finding somebody in Welton who could decipher it all and it was very, very difficult and I think that’s what
DE: Right.
RC: In the end we sort of drifted apart. We never, you know, so what he was actually saying in the letters. Well he did say, I got it done once, would I ask Mr Whites if he would get them back to come and work for him again
DE: Ahum
RC: Yeah they loved it there. And we got the land back from Dunholme Lodge as well while they was with us as well and had all that to plough up.
DE: Right.
RC: And had to rush around that spring and put barley down and all of it there and yeah but
DE: Right.
RC: Yeah we had some good times with them.
DE: I think that’s smashing unless there’s anything else you can think of.
RC: No.
DE: Might be of interest that’s a wonderful interview thank you very much.
RC: No it all happened in such a short time. Something happens even nowadays and it reminds you then of something, oh yeah I remember a similar thing happening in you know and I’m glad I can still, my wife wouldn’t think so like but I think my memory is pretty good. [laughs]
DE: I think so too, yeah.
RC: You’ve got to remember what you’ve got to remember when the wife’s around [laughs]. Yeah no but she would, she said if she’d come with me today she said all she would be able to say was that she lived at Metheringham and they built that aerodrome. We are going actually, probably go Saturday anyway. Never been to their to their -
DE: Oh. The Visitor Centre.
RC: The Visitor Centre. We always say we’re going but never get there. Yeah but yeah I’ve seen it all happen. Saw Scampton when it was all being built. About 1936 when they started to rebuild that and I’m told that in the First World War it was more where the showground is.
DE: I think that’s right yeah.
RC: All that way so I don’t know. I used to be, I used to play golf with the flight engineer off the Vulcans.
DE: Ahum.
RC: He’s dead now. A chap from Hykeham and he said that they used to go on these with the Americans on these bombing,
DE: Exercises.
RC: Exercises and the Vulcans used to go out tops every time like, you know. They reckoned they were brilliant aircraft. And when they come back from America when they came back from abroad with them they had to go through like you would if you were on a flight, you had to go through customs and whatnot but they used, I think he said they used to come back through Grimsby and so Waddington would tell Grimsby that they’d got aircraft coming back from you know and used to tell them time of arrival, you know and John said if we’d get up to forty thousand feet he said and you got a good back wind he said with the Vulcans he said we can knock an hour off easily. That’s what he said. From America. And he said some of the lads used to, he wasn’t a big drinker John wasn’t but he said you had to back a whisky and what not and what’s the name would come and say you’ve got a plane coming back from America something and oh they’re in, they’ve been, they’ve gone home ages. [unclear] Yeah. Them Vulcans could really move.
DE: Yeah.
RC: If they kept to forty thousand he said. Yeah
DE: Smashing that’s great thank you ever so much.
RC: You’re welcome.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Rob CarterSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Fire fightersDescriptionAn account of the resourceRob Carter was born in the village of Scampton and reminisces about his life on the land before the war. He recounts the foundation of RAF Dunholme Lodge, which his house overlooked. During the war, he served in the Auxiliary Fire Service. He was called to put out the fire at an aircraft crash site near RAF Dunholme Lodge. He describes the pumps that the Auxiliary Fire Service used, Foster Gwynne and Coventry Climax. He recounts experiencing bomb attacks on Hull and Lincoln, in which the Lincoln Nurses’ Home was hit.CreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceDan EllinPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-06-29ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceJulie WilliamsHeather HughesFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource01:06:53 audio recordingLanguageA language of the resourceengIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextACarterRH150629RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.Spatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Great BritainEngland--LincolnshireEngland--HullEngland--LincolnEngland--WeltonEngland--ScamptonTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantCivilianRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber Commandbombingcivil defencecrashfirefightinghome frontprisoner of warRAF Dunholme Lodgehttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/15/25/ABoschD150730.1.mp32448e92d76f47177718312bd530f4e19Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceBosch, DirkD BoschDescriptionAn account of the resourceOne oral history interview with Dirk Bosch (b. 1931) a schoolboy in Amsterdam during the war. The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.DateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-07-30IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextBosch, DRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceJulie WilliamsHeather HughesTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentMC: This interview is being carried out on the behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewee is Mr Dirk Bosch, the interviewer is Mike Connock and the date is the 30th of July 2015 and the interview is taking place at Welton. Right, if you just tell me a bit about where and when you were born.
DB: I was born in Amsterdam, July 1931, just about eighty four years ago therefore and when war broke out I therefore was only I was only eight years and a number of months old. That’s very young and my parents obviously tried to shield me from everything. We lived in Amsterdam and I do remember that when Holland had capitulated as they obviously would have. They would either have been overrun by superior German forces or capitulate so I think it was a sensible option. The country is small. In the First World War which was often mentioned 1914 1918 the Netherlands were neutral and we liked it. We took that as a good thing and we wanted to be neutral again. So we tried to be neutral. We did not mobilise in the face of Germany because we thought we could pacify her. We could keep them quiet which meant that when war broke out we were not prepared. We were knowingly and consciously not prepared. My brother therefore who was of that age, older, about 12 years older than me [pause] he was lately, late on called up and he was got ready for the front because we didn’t engage, we didn’t engage with the Germans. It was that quiet. But he late on was called up and he was got ready for the front with no preparation to speak of. No training. No exercise. Just in, issued a uniform, keep him in that barracks there and you know he was very soon to go to the front when fortunately the war ended in Holland. We were not unhappy with that as such. It, it was the best of two evils really.
So I remember standing along one of our main entry roads into Amsterdam and the Germans came in in endless columns. Nearly all in transport. There weren’t any, any boots on the floor. They were nearly all were in transport and they dashed past us, they rushed past into the centre of Amsterdam and from there probably onward. The Germans being Germans will have been well organised. And that afternoon. Whatever time it took - that was it. We were now occupied. You didn’t notice that much on the day. We didn’t hear any
MC: I was going to say, you were going to say I just wondered how the schooling, your schooling was, you know, up until that time.
DB: OK.
MC: Can you?
DB: Well yeah I’m trying to recoup where I was. Anyway the Germans were all through town and for one thing they took our school. We had a nice, fairly modern school and they took it for a hospital. We therefore, the pupils had to join another school and I haven’t got the dates and times precisely I know but it was something like 8 to 1 for the one school and one to half past five for the other school and that alternated. So, that, the prettier school that the Germans had, had taken for the hospital, that was built right into the middle of blocks of civilian houses and they had, I’m sure, done that on purpose to make sure that the RAF or whoever wouldn’t come in to bomb or anything. Well in the first place everything was pretty quiet. We were told at a fairly early time but I don’t know how early that we had to hand in our radios and my parents did but the neighbour below us because we lived in flats, the neighbours below us hid theirs. Now if it had been found they would have been shot. As easy as that. But it wasn’t found because the man was a worker at a local bank and he had all sorts of nooks and crannies at his disposal, vaults and safes and he could manage to scriddle[?] his radio away. We did of course see Germans walking and we also had what we referred to as the NSB which is the National Socialist Bond or something and they acquired uniforms. They were given uniforms and they were put on the street corners selling their particular paper which I’ve never ever seen anybody buy. That was the most ostensible signs. There was, there were declarations. The Germans put declarations on walls and house sides and the declaration would be in the gothic lettering. We couldn’t hardly read it but then they also put what we would call today normal, normal script, normal font next to it and we were supposed to read that and see what we were to do and not to do because that was what it was all about. We had an underground and the underground was active but very cautious because we had little to gain. We couldn’t do anything that was terribly significant. I mean you wouldn’t go and kill a German soldier because the repercussions would be tremendous and you wouldn’t have achieved much. So we just saw them march and they sang. We had a curfew. Not I suppose at once but I only remember it if it was all [?] time we had a curfew at night, fairly early. I would think depending on how light it was. Something between 6 and 7 and then at night when we had little to do but go to bed we could hear the singing and marching. There was of course no transport to speak of because at, in 1940 stroke ‘45 we in Holland had very few motorcars in the first place. I mean who had a motorcar? I had one uncle who had a car and I had twelve uncles, you know and, but that was how life was. That was normal. We had bicycles. The use of the bicycles was fairly limited because the Germans built cordons and let all the bicycles run into it but none out. They took the bicycles for melting down the rubber of the tyres and the steel or the metal anyway for their, for their weapons production. So people became terribly frightened and cautious about using their bicycles. The out, the way out was by using the bicycles without tyres. It’s possible. It makes it a much slower process and very loud especially on cobbles. The things rattle like hell but what developed was that parties of people not many at once would go ‘up farmer’. Now ‘up farmer’ means you go and sort out a farmer somewhere in the country. You take your box camera or your, a couple of sheets or whatever you have in the cupboard and you try and exchange that for something to eat because the, at this time, the time I’m talking about but not sure how to to identify we had no food and the farmers were sympathetic and I did take our stuff. I suppose I more or less had to, er but they would they would try to give you something to to take away and the thing to have was peas because they were long lasting things and wheat. Wheat was always fancied. Er Potatoes. Potatoes could last a good while but anyway anything they would give and then the people would walk the bikes so they wouldn’t matter so much if they made a bit noise but there were trips beyond a single day so they would have to sleep somewhere by the roadside right on top of the bikes so that they wouldn’t get stolen or anything with their gear on and then the following day they would have to continue their journeys. Now my sister, who at that time must have been anything between fifteen and twenty, sorry I can’t know much better she did a couple of trips and she did it with a friend of hers, also of course a young lady and there was, I never heard of any problems that they had with the German soldiers. They were stopped and they were asked what they were doing and what they had there and they happened to get away with it. They didn’t lose any gear but a number of people would relate their stories. They were stopped by German soldiers. They would take everything they had got from the farmers and the bikes and they would have to walk the rest home with nothing. That of course was very, very unfortunate very unpleasant. So as war progressed we got we had less and less food. The Germans provided a system of ration cards and food to, to cover those ration cards. There was also what was known as centrale keuken - centralised kitchens and you had ration coupons for those kitchens and it was my not ever so pleasant duty to go with a pan to some shack somewhere and get your, your ration of slops whatever it was and carry them, carry that home again and when it got home it was a very unanimous sort of slops you know. There was, you could see perhaps a little bit of the potato or a little bit of carrot but you couldn’t really tell what it was. It was just like a thick soup basically and then if you wanted to warm it up somewhat or something you did not have any fuel. There was no gas. There was no electricity. Electricity wouldn’t have helped in this instance because in Holland we used gas for all that and electricity really only for lights, radio, that sort of thing. So we had stoves in our main room in our lounge, our sitting room - living room. We had stoves and where they came from I don’t know but there was a supply of little stoves. Little metal boxes and those boxes were more or less open in the bottom and had a hole in the top and they had a little drawer in the bottom and had the shelf in the middle like a roster with, you know that the air could pass through. And us kids were sent out to find branches and bits of paper and anything that would burn and what you could do you could put the little square box, metal that was on top of your stove your main stove in the lounge and the draft would come from the bottom, draw through the grid, the grill and you had some paper in there and you lit it and put your branches fired your branches, your bits of timber anything you could find and that would then burn quite well. You could put a pan on the top of it and the pan shut off the top so you have got an opening in the bottom for the air to go into, then you had a, it, it went through the fuel if you like. Then there was a vertical enclosure of it and that was not quite, did not quite go to the top. So the air that rose being hot would go over the top and at the back it would be sucked away into the works of the stove and go up your, the chimney in to the environment so that way you had a heated source and you could warm something a bit. Obviously later, in later years when it got colder and that last winter ’44, ‘45 wasn’t it, it was a very bad one. A very strong winter. It was not it, it, it meant nothing. It was not enough heat to do anything. At that time we would sit in our kitchens. It would be dark early. I don’t know what this discipline of lighting we had whether the clocks were forward or backward or two hours forward or two hours backward even we, I don’t know but it was light, it was dark early and you went to bed early. We sat in our kitchen and our kitchen was about ten foot by a good four foot and there was one little table in it. There were in fact six of us. My brother, two sisters, my father, my mother and myself and we would, we would sit on that around that little table a little table of about 60cm by 120metre, you know, very small and my mother would be invariably darning. My sister would be rehashing, recycling clothing would be unpicking the seams, would be cutting away the edges would be putting it back together and later sew it again on a hand sewing machine and then it would be a different size. It would be smaller because everything would have been uniformly proportionately be reduced and that was for somebody else to be used and that’s how we went with that. The ice on the windows was measurable it was at the bottom end of the of the window pane where some melting might have occurred and it had come down. At the bottom of the window pane it would be a good half inch thick and the whole pane would be filled with ice. And it would be rather beautiful to be honest where all these patterns that these crystals make. But upstairs, and I slept upstairs it would be absolutely freezing. It is unbelievable. People did not only died of hunger but they also died of cold of course. Now there is a big thing not yet mentioned to you which had its own affect all through and at one point we had on one the morning when we stepped out we saw people with funny yellow stars on their clothing and I had no idea. I had no idea what it was about and I don’t know if I very soon did because as I said my parents tried to keep me out of things. Not ever so religiously but on the whole you know I didn’t know about. But those of course were the Jews and at a given time these people all came out with these yellow stars on their coats and as you know the Jews wear a lot of black. Black overcoats are a favourite and then they had a very poorly sewn yellow stars on their coat. You could see someone very unused to sewing sometimes had sewn them on. Big course stitches you know five points that was all really. But once they were identifiable and identified they were sitting ducks. I suppose that there would have been certain ones who didn’t do it. They were very much in danger if they were found out but the ones who did do it were little better off. One morning and I, one of the things I remember, and I don’t think I have a memory for everything at all but one thing I remember when we walked to school from where we lived we crossed a rather main artery, you know, major road and as we came from the side street that we used to cross it and continue on the other side to my right were a number of German trucks, open trucks and there were people being ushered along the pavements. There were German soldiers stood along the pavement in in rows that I walked in between and the Germans were all armed and they were sort of roughly made to get into those trucks, standing on top in the open and those that had been filled were just having to stand there and wait and the rest will no doubt would have filled because we just crossed that road and we went on. Talk about it. We had no idea we had no idea. Nobody did. Perhaps at that time the right people hadn’t even been addressed to Hitler to set processes in in motion. I don’t know but we, Germans to us were our neighbours. We had a certain respect for Germans. Other countries as well. Holland by the nature of its minerals, its ores and other things we were dependant on foreign countries for much of our industrial product and we knew Germans and French and English well. On, even on the quite simple schools you learned the three languages German English and Dutch err German, English and French because you were expected later to be able to converse with these people.So, I’m trying to pick up my train of thought here. We, we had seen Germans we had known we knew, were more into German music than English or French music and we would have some idea of German films. Even in the, the wartime in the beginning of the war we could still go to cinemas but only to see German pictures and we spoke of Heinz Ruhmann because he was such a funny man. We didn’t mind Germans at that level somehow because oh they would look after us. The Jews would be alright. They were, after all they were Germans. They wouldn’t do anything nasty. It wasn’t in ‘em. And although we had our underground from the word go and people were very much anti the German sympathisers we didn’t at that point hate the Germans, strangely enough. Perhaps my memory is not perfect on that score or my knowledge but that’s how it must have been for at least for a good proportion. So we went into that period and the Jews were being deported to work camps. We understood that the Jews were being taken to work for the Germans. Now it wasn’t very nice. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t good but they’d be back soon. They wouldn’t be long. So there they went and the Germans started to empty their houses or their flats or whatever you know. We referred, in our idiom we referred to all that as houses. They started to empty their houses and if you looked in the railway yards you could see long columns of wagons with enormous banners on them from back to front and it says liefde giften van Holland [?]which means love gifts from the Netherlands. This of course was a lie but nobody was even shaken too much about that. After all we didn’t have that much respect for the German decorative but in any case we didn’t know what was going on and what happened was that those wagons were all being run off to Germany and somehow were made available to Germans. We of course in Holland had lots of waterways and near us in one of the canals we had one of these big lighters [?] . Are you familiar with lighter? A lighter is like a big open house a big hull really that’s all it is. And they were full of small items. I proudly, we jumped into them and do you know was rummaging about and I proudly brought some bank slips home. I had no idea what a bank slip was but I could, could draw on that. So I brought that home for drawing on and for writing on. Just a few things. I think I was then told not to do it again but that was the long and the short of it. So and by and by that disappeared. Now those houses stood empty and as it got cooler and colder eventually we Dutch people of Amsterdam came and broke open the the doors because in Holland and certainly at that time there was one front door and several flats off it so the flat, the front door could usually be opened with a latch key. So they kept, they left the front doors in the beginning but they began to take all the stairs away. They took the stairs away right to the top to the third or fourth floor they burnt them of course. That was fuel. And when that had gone they took the doors on the higher floors away and when they had gone they took the floors of the floor of the other floors away and when they had gone they took the beams and rafters until they were stood there empty. The front door by that time would have gone as well but they, they were empty carcases of houses. The bricks of course remained and I think out of caution and health and safety they left some of the beams so they wouldn’t collapse on people. But that that was that. That disappeared. We had one Jewish couple - couple from family which we were acquainted with and they disappeared. We knew through my sister there was a girl in that family Stella and her father and mother and their fathers and mothers they all disappeared one day. Gone. And only the girl herself came back. After the war, I don’t know I think it was the Americans who found them in their concentration camp. After the war they were first taken back to another part of Germany and then to Sweden and from Sweden to America and we have known them and we have visited them in New York where she had by that time married a German. A German Jew. He had also been in a, in a concentration camp and they, they told us stories not too much because it’s distasteful and you don’t like to talk about that but on the other hand they were very keen that young, younger people, their own kids would be well acquainted of facts. Right. What I would want to say is are you happy that little?
MC: Did your parents work at that time? Were they, what did they do?
DB: At -
MC: For work
DB: At that time women very rarely worked in Holland. They were housewives. Holland of course had a reputation for being clean and everything. Well those women at home were always cleaning and they cleaned the streets in front of our flats and we, carpets were being beaten twice a week and it was quite a, quite a thing you know and all carpets were taken up – carpets and rug, rugs, and my mother would talk to the lady below us and they would come together, take all the carpets and rugs out. Some of ‘em had special steps, wooden steps, very tall about seven steps to a set and they had two brackets in the top rung and they would bring down a long wooden pole and they would push the pole through the brackets and big the eyes and then they would put the carpets over the pole and they would hold a corner of it in one hand and the carpet beater in the other hand and they would give it hell and, I didn’t know that at the time but there was even regulation about it. Not everyone could at any time beat a carpet. You couldn’t do it before and I’m guessing 8 o’clock because people might still be sleeping. And you couldn’t do it longer than 10 o’clock because it was about time that it stopped and when those carpets were being beaten and remember that was all down the street and those buildings are four storeys high so it echoes and the din was enormous and then when it was done it had to be rolled up, taken up the stairs, the stair carpets had to come down as well and the stair carpets were sewn together so that when they were rolled out they took the shape of the stair and then they had the carpet rods and they were, had to be reinserted under the eyes that were drilled into the carpet to the stairs however and then peace was restored. But it was not of any import in itself of course. Not relevant to the war. That always happened but that’s what the ladies did. They cleaned. My father was made to work somewhere because just at that time when the Germans came in he’d become sort of redundant because of the slump because by that time you know you had the big malaise and he was, was set to work in fields because I know this because the Germans loaded them up on trucks and ran ’em to the fields somewhere and gave them jobs to do. I spent the whole day there. I had a fishing rod and stayed there all day and had a marvellous time. Excellent time. And the Germans stood guard armed over these elderly Dutch workers. So I don’t know what he did. I never went to look. I don’t know if I’d have been allowed to get any nearer. Perhaps I was as near as I could get but they will have been building bunkers or tank, tank stops, tank – I don’t know. And really on the whole therefore we didn’t have an awful lot to do with them. I would, I was involved in taking an illegal paper. Now illegal papers were serious business and the Germans here again would kill people. Because they wanted, at all costs I think they knew the punishment was out of step with the offence but they knew that it had to be stopped at source because the illegal papers told people things they didn’t want you to know. There was, the only news I know we had was a news cinema in town. For a little while we had the radios and that already very quickly turned into propaganda medium. Let’s not be mistaken about this all the time everywhere but the when the Germans said that over the front at this point the German forces have carried out tactful for retreat for the good of the war and therefore be in a better position. No. They had been beaten and they had been beaten back but you didn’t know that and you didn’t know what you could believe and what you could not believe. We thought even the illegal newspapers were written with a view to bolstering morale of the readers and could have been prettified but we chose not to believe that because we wanted to to hear the best and therefore well anyway one day I had to take it to the next person to read it. It was after curfew. We were lived in a quiet street and there would rarely be anybody around in the daytime and at night. It was absolutely empty. So I had to take the illegal paper over the road. I came downstairs singing and dancing because I could do the stairs in the pitch black. Knew exactly where everything was no problem. I got out of the front door. It was a moonless night. No light whatsoever. Street lights had long gone. I stepped out and I suddenly became aware that there was somebody and I could just about having got close, too close see that it was a uniform and I thought, “Oh my God what do I do?” I thought go straight on. Make out that it’s nothing so I skipped on and went over the road. I had my latchkey, the latchkey ready. I threw the latchkey in to the lock, opened it and shut the door behind me and stood with my heart beating cause if I’d gone back they would have hurt my parents if I’d gone forward the other people could have been but they could have denied all knowledge and could have said, I just fled. So that is what I did. Later on I learned it was actually a navy man and the navy wouldn’t have had anything to, to, no axes to grind, you know what I mean. That was one little event. Another little event was we had to walk everywhere because there were no longer any trams. There was were few buses in Amsterdam anyway but they weren’t there. No trams, no buses. All you could do was bikes and I’ve said something about that. Or walk. And we walked everywhere. I had an aunt who lived about two hours walking north of Amsterdam beyond the harbour. And I remember walking there and a couple of my mates came with me. We did that a lot. You could go anywhere with your mates and come in. And there was little tiny boat probably a mine dredger or something in the harbour and kids were selling a little puppy dog for half a loaf, half a German loaf. German loaf of course is quite a brick you know. They weren’t very good. On the same walk having arrived on the other side of the harbour we walked on and there was a lot of shouting and running about. We saw that a group of people was attacking a baker. He was delivering bread. That was common. That was ordinary at the time. There is nothing new under the sun is there? These deliveries from supermarkets well they were already delivering bread by cart from the bakers and as the man had arrived at his destination house and had rung the bell he’d left the hood up and there was a big cover on it, a hard cover and the people were in it, robbing him of his bread. And he ran back oh six foot of it and slammed the cover down and I remember that one loaf had spilled out from it from under the cover under the cart and I was well inclined to go and pick it up and have it but it was gone before I could even begin to make ground and it was one of those well one and a half inch high loaves because there was no yeast. There was no yeast. There was no salt. The flour was course and hadn’t really been strained or [unclear] or whatever you do. That was, that was why the bread was as it was. What we did do and did a better job of it if we got the opportunity we went into the countryside when they were harvesting and we walked behind the err what do you call it, the machine, the big machine
MC: Combine harvester?
DB: The combine yeah. We walked we used to walk behind the combines. No I’m lying we didn’t have the combines. It was a scythes job.
MC: Yeah.
DB: Remember that?
MC: Yeah.
DB: When they would be scything, the farmers would be scything and there would be somehow, there would be ears of grain on the floor. I don’t know how they got removed from the stalks but they were like the ears and from the bundles you know the sheaves and those we were allowed to pick up and put in bags and there was usually a German soldier stood in the field but they didn’t fuss with that. A field is a big thing to cover and they didn’t have that many people on hand. If, if they, if they’d done anything like shoot at people it would have been very difficult for them to keep control over all the people that were there. I don’t think they would have been too keen.
Right. Well I would hardly say this is all but I’ve?
MC: So you mentioned about the, you heard, used to hear the bombers going over. Perhaps you could tell us a bit more about that
DB: Right well at night and remember about the curfew we would go to bed early and in the dark I remember it always dark pitch all the time. In the dark you would lie listening and listen with the certain knowledge of what you were going to hear. There was no traffic. There were no cars, no buses, no trams. There were no planes of course. There wouldn’t have been any bicycles without tyres at that time of night. But what you would hear and there was some magic about it you would hear planes and the planes you would hear you wouldn’t hear the beginning of. You would, you could never say it’s started because it was either there or it wasn’t there. They, that merged into the silence so thinly because it was so far away that you couldn’t make it out. Not until there were more of ‘em and they were nearer and then you would hear the anti-aircraft guns and the anti-aircraft gun would at first, in the early stages they would be busy. You know the lights would be crossing the skies quite wildly it seemed. Sometimes they would pick one out and let’s say it was a Lancaster it would just go off and the aircraft gunners would aim at it but it would be too high. They would be invariably be too high and it would just go on. They wouldn’t lose it whether they, whether because of the aircraft moving them not being good enough to hold on to. Not that easy I think but they would lose it then and through the night you would hear that distant drone and you would know that it was power, powerful drone excuse me power, powerful drone because one aircraft would not have made that particular noise. It was the numbers that made the difference. And when you were in your bed alive [?] to it and that being the only sound you heard it had a big significance. You knew that this mattered, it mattered to our good because it was the only bit of war effort that we witnessed and it happened to the German’s detriment. That’s the other thing that would make it good. And they would drone over and over and over and we would normally not hear the end of it. Hard enough to do but by that time we would be asleep and then sometimes we would hear an aircraft. Normally a single, an aircraft come over low and land. Low and very loud. Not like the drone. Not power or anything. It would probably have been it and it would come over low and just miss the tops of the houses or steeples or whatever and it would be on its way back and you would know that there would be people sitting in there – four, five, ten, I don’t know. And they would be in danger. And they might die. And they would go over and go towards the west. They would soon be over the sea and they would all be sitting in there praying that it would stay up. That it would make it to Norfolk, Suffolk you know. The first stops. Not Lincolnshire I don’t think because that would make it such a wider angle. It would be farther to fly. We don’t know whether we ever heard one that went down. We don’t know whether we ever hear one that put down safely you know. That, that was a very relevant sort of noise [unclear]. It sort of, of course when the war ended we were in a bad way. In Amsterdam in particular because we were above a certain line. I don’t need to go in to this here but the Germans had perforated the dykes so the water had come in and much of Holland is below sea level so a lot of area had been inundated err the food [?]still could come to us very easily but somehow somewhere an agreement was reached for the allies to drop food. Now there will have been a lot of people who knew detail of that you know. The underground resistance workers. We didn’t. It wasn’t for us to know but what we did know is that one day we heard an aircraft as loud as we ever have heard one and only feet high. Came over, we could see the members of the crew and we were waving whatever we got. They were waving. We were cheering. You could hear the cheering over everything [short pause]and that was marvellous. They had dropped food and they were on their way back. They were waving to us. People were on the rooves especially where they were flat and they were waving with sheets and towels and flags. You weren’t supposed to have flags. And everything and the big thing of it was we knew it was true. Now it was true. We were liberated. It was, was enormous. And that is why it is so big in Holland.
MC: So when did you get access to the food? Did they bring it?
DB: That was, that was out of our scope. That wasn’t for us. There were authorities and the authorities took it and they were our authorities. Dutch. And they did it proper but don’t forget they didn’t throw down bread loaves they throw down flour. Threw down flour and that had to be collected, baked and the, the bread which came almost overnight which was so good. Was white. We didn’t believe that you could have white bread like that. It was white and it was high. It stood like that. We couldn’t believe that either. And then we got food at school. They provided food through the schools so that the kids could have food and well that, if you like, was it. That was almost the very last act of the war. The Germans had had enough and you can’t blame ’em. The Germans who were there had had enough and they set off walking. They walked. You see Holland is not a big country as you well know and I think it would still probably take three days to cross it on foot you know. But they set off, they set off walking home. Oh and the edge of Amsterdam was a pile and each German solder threw on it a bayonet, his gun, his rifle whatever he had. All his arms and that pile was growing all the time. We looked at it jealously because us kids you know, thought marvellous I’m going to pinch one of them but you didn’t get that chance. I suppose if I remember correctly it was the underground that guarded it, people of the resistance and, and that was, and there was only one other thing an account that the war was over. Germany had capitulated. On the corner of the Dam Square in Amsterdam where the palace is is a principal hotel and the German officers used it and they thought it would be fun. All the people had come out again. It was lively on the Dam Square lots of people walking and being merry and they thought it would be fun to aim their sub machine guns on it and start rattling and they killed a number of Dutch people on the square after the war had ended.
[tape stops]
MC: So the Dutch railways?
DB: This is running?
MC: Yes, yeah just
DB: The Germans had left the Dutch to run the Dutch railways but they made diligent use of it. They used it for freight of all sorts, armaments perhaps. I do not know. And personnel. And when it got a bit further in to the war and the underground was thinking what more could we do to help here, a difficult organisation you must understand they decided to encourage the Dutch railwaymen to go on strike and that would just throw down the Dutch railways bang [we won[?]. And I don’t know how they achieved it but they did it and the Germans were a bit, very upset about and very much crossed their line of approach, their system. And for one thing they, they did kill a number of railwaymen for the reason, for that reason and they tried to find more all the time and there were those who were just at home. My uncle was a railwayman and he and his wife also were harbouring a Jewish woman. But in the first place they had got a one escapee or what shall we call them? A person who avoids the German occupation but, or, or imprisonment but she would have gone to the camps. Well they had the one lady had a position in the eaves in case of danger. That was the Jewish woman. And when they did in fact come and they did of course they had personnel records so they could go straight to the addresses of the people who hadn’t turned up and they came to look for railwaymen and there my aunt was hiding this Jewish woman but they got her into the eaves somehow in time but there was very little time to do anything about my uncle. Well in Holland we have the custom of every day taking off the bedclothes and airing them over a chair or something so she forced my uncle on the chair because she was a very quick witted woman. She forced my uncle on a chair next to the bed and threw the bedclothes over him. There is a version of this story that the Germans came through the house all right. Never got anywhere near this Jewish woman but when one of the Germans looked and my aunt looked at him she saw him look at the pair of shoes appearing from underneath the bedclothes and she then believes that he thought, ‘no, leave them be’. Not all Germans were of course bad. I believe that they with the war being over we, you know they wish they had been. I know that I was later in Switzerland of all places and I was on an outlook post in a in a Swiss forest and there was another chap on the top there and we got talking and he asked what nationality I was and I said I was Dutch and he shrunk, he visibly shrunk and he said, “You must hate me”. You know there were good people. Not that many.
MC: So after the war you stayed in Holland?
DB: I stayed in Holland. I did a job and um but not immediately of course and actually it is a bit relevant. We had people doing health checks and a lot of us who had been hungry in the war we were underweight. And if you were underweight there was a system whereby Danish, Swedish, I think Swiss families had opened up to Dutch kids to put some weight on again and I was chosen to go to Denmark which I well enjoyed by the thought of it. That would be good for me to see this country. It would an adventure and everything and I was well keen to go but not all that long before the travel time it was full and I couldn’t go. Well that wasn’t good at all because I had to have my end exams, my final examinations from school at that time but with the prospect of going away my head teacher said he’d prepare me one on the basis of my schoolwork which would have been considerably better than than the exam so I was happy and now I had go again. So I locked myself up to study and then I got a place in England. I got a place in Lincoln. So at the late hour I was taken to a place called Woodlands near Doncaster which was an, I think an RAF base. May have been an army base and we slept in Nissan huts and I spent six weeks in Nissan huts and eight weeks with family.
MC: And how old were you at that time?
DB: Fourteen I believe and the people that had the honour of having, receiving me, for getting me were the parents of my wife. Can you imagine, I often think of this, somewhere in Amsterdam in an unknown place sits an unknown person who says who have you got down for Denmark? Oh no, no they’re full. At that moment my life changes. I don’t know that. I will never know the, and then somebody says there are a few places left in England. And that’s when my life changes, changes again. And even the, it even chooses my wife. So the war has got something to answer for don’t you think?
MC: Absolutely yeah yeah it can change your life yes. So after, after that you just stayed in Lincoln?
DB: I worked in Holland at the savings bank, the Holland Steamship Company that sailed to Falmouth and Fowey and Manchester and Liverpool and London and I got some free, free sails, sailings with and I then worked at my uncle’s who had a factory in [unclear] in a small metalwork. I then worked for an importer no I worked yeah, yeah importer, exporter of chemicals and aromas and I worked somewhere else, I can’t remember now. I mentioned I also did administration for a small dealer in household objects. Anyway I came back from time to time to – just because I liked it to be honest. I liked to do it and to come here and I had certain opportunities and I once or twice came to my then still foster parents unannounced and they put me up sweet as anything no problem. Then they came once or twice to Holland. Then Mavis came to Holland once - no with a friend and I just grew in the normal way that things grew and that really became the end. Now let’s see if there’s anything there must be something left. I had a feeling that there was something significant yet to tell you. No I can’t, I can’t think. I’ve certainly gone over all the major things that I have to tell you. It’s - unless you have any questions that -
MC: No.
DB: No my brother was the same age that I have referred, have I, have I referred to him
MC: [unclear]
DB: My brother in law but yes he was my brother in law was deported to Germany as a, as a worker. He could drive car which very few people could and he drove cars and buses in Germany of labourers or workers from their lodgings to the factories. Now my brother was the same age group but he didn’t have to go because he’d been working in the horticultural industry and his boss had quicky diverted to vegetable growth, growing veggies and he became a protected worker thereby. My sisters. My younger sister worked what that was commonly, in service and my older sister in the clothing industry and did well after the war and went to America and had a small department in a patterns factory in in New York. A company called Simplicity.
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Dirk BoschSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber CommandHolocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)DescriptionAn account of the resourceDirk Bosch was eight years old when the German army occupied his home town of Amsterdam. In this interview he describes what life was like for him during this time. He refers to seeing Dutch Jews rounded up and deported. He describes the hunger of the time and the effort to find food by travelling to the countryside and hoping for help from the farmers. He also speaks about the dangers he faced while taking illegal newspapers to a neighbour. He describes the sound of the Lancaster bomber aircraft flying overhead at night. He also describes Operation Manna.CreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceMike ConnockPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-07-30ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceJulie WilliamsHeather HughesFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource01:16:00 audio recordingIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextABoschD150730Spatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Netherlands--AmsterdamNetherlandsLanguageA language of the resourceengRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.TypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantCivilianTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.194019441945Holocausthome frontLancasterOperation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)Resistanceround-uphttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/16/28/PAtkinsonA1501.2.jpgbf3244af0b166946682bd80de3877eb0Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceAtkinson, ArthurArthur Atkinson A AtkinsonDescriptionAn account of the resourceThree items. An oral history interview with Arthur Atkinson (b. 1922, 1042303 Royal Air Force) and two photographs. Arthur Atkinson trained as a wireless operator and spent eighteen months at RAF Ringway before being flying 34 operations with 61 Squadron from RAF Coningsby and RAF Skellingthorpe.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Arthur Atkinson and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-06-23RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceArthur AtkinsonSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber CommandDescriptionAn account of the resourceHalf-length portrait photograph of Sergeant Arthur Atkinson seated, in uniform with air gunner brevet.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resourceOne b/w photographIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextPAtkinsonA1501RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.TypeThe nature or genre of the resourcePhotographCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber Commandair gunneraircrewhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/16/29/PAtkinsonA1502.1.jpg60a1efa7e634ed89a9d0aaabaa878a38Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceAtkinson, ArthurArthur Atkinson A AtkinsonDescriptionAn account of the resourceThree items. An oral history interview with Arthur Atkinson (b. 1922, 1042303 Royal Air Force) and two photographs. Arthur Atkinson trained as a wireless operator and spent eighteen months at RAF Ringway before being flying 34 operations with 61 Squadron from RAF Coningsby and RAF Skellingthorpe.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Arthur Atkinson and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-06-23RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceArthur Atkinson SubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber CommandDescriptionAn account of the resourceFull length portrait photograph of Arthur Atkinson in uniform, with a cadet’s hat, a leading aircraftman’s rank insignia.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resourceOne b/w photographIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextPAtkinsonA1502RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandTypeThe nature or genre of the resourcePhotographaircrewground personneltrainingwireless operatorhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/17/32/PBellO1501.1.jpgc93a55a1daf7520d69277765425887a8https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/17/32/PBellO1502.1.jpgf1bdb7cb15ecbc09984c2db95014591dDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceBell, OliverO BellDescriptionAn account of the resourceOne item. The collection consists of a photograph of a Lancaster and personnel at RAF Blyton in 1944. It was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by G Sadler and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital AchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-10-02IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextBell, ODublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceGroup portrait with a LancasterSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber CommandDescriptionAn account of the resourceGroup photograph of 133 men and women in front of a Lancaster, some on the wings and the fuselage, some arranged in three rows on the ground. A civilian building is visible in the background.
On the reverse 'Blyton - Bomber Command - 1944'PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource1944FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resourceOne b/w photographIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextPBellO1501, PBellO1502RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resource This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.TypeThe nature or genre of the resourcePhotographCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Great BritainEngland--LincolnshireTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1944Conforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.MD0 stableLancasterRAF BlytonDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceDirks, HeinoH DirksHeinrich DirksDescriptionAn account of the resourceOne oral history interview with Heino Dirks (b.1922), a German firefighter at Jever airbase.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-06-26IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextDirks, HDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Heino DirksSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Airplanes, Military--AccidentsFire fightersGermany. LuftwaffeCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourcePeter SchulzePublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-06-26ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourcePeter SchulzeFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource01:03:27 audio recordingLanguageA language of the resourcedeuIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextADirksH160626Spatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Germany--JeverGermany--HamburgFranceBelgiumSoviet UnionGermanyRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceIn accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, this item is available only at the International Bomber Command Centre / University of Lincoln. For more information please visit https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items-not-available-onlineTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundDescriptionAn account of the resourceHeino Dirks recounts his younger life in Jever, his experience as a decorator's apprentice in Wilhelmshaven and his service as a firefighter at Jever Airbase. He recollects the crash of a 37 Squadron Wellington R3263 when on duty and his efforts to extinguish the fire. He chronicles his military life in the Luftwaffe, serving in Belgium, France and Germany until being taken prisoner by the Russians. He recollects his escape from a Russian camp together with a friend and his adventurous journey back home. He reminisces about the bombing of Hamburg, when he went to visit his sister. Herr Dirks recounts the hardships in pre and post-war Germany.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, this item is available only at the International Bomber Command Centre / University of Lincoln.CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantWehrmacht. LuftwaffeTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1940-06-061940-06-07bombingcrashfirefightingprisoner of warWellingtonhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/129/40/PFlowersJ1501.2.jpgc8c6c363f3571803b163c63628f7293dhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/129/40/PFlowersJ1502.2.jpg13dff83dcc74f0fe413ea7eb4a08fccchttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/129/40/AFlowersHJ150602.1.mp3f58403692c6da41dbb74bf1dcbd8b1feDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceFlowers, JamesH J FlowersHorrace James FlowersHarry James FlowersDescriptionAn account of the resource11 items. The collection concerns the wartime experiences of Flight Sergeant Horace James Flowers, a rear gunner with 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe. The collection consists of one oral history interview, a propaganda leaflet and nine photographs. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by James Flowers and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextFlowers, HJPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentHJF: My name is Horace James Flowers. I’m known as James. I am recording my, I served in the RAF for four and a half years from 1944 until 1947. I attained the rank of flight sergeant and flew, and served with 50 squadron and 44 squadron, 50 squadron at Skellingthorpe and 40 squadron, 44 squadron in Tiger Force at a number of squads, at a number centres, stations. I’m recording this for the International Bomber Command Centre on the 2nd of June, er, 2nd of June 2015 in, at xxxxx Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire. Yeah. I was born on the 9th of 10th, 9th of the 10th 1924 in a small village called Huthwaite in Nottinghamshire. I remained in Huthwaite, remained in Huthwaite during my education which was only secondary modern. Secondary modern. I then left school at fourteen, 1939. That sounds bad doesn’t it?
MJ: That’s alright.
HJF: I left school, I left school when I was fourteen. That was 1939. I became an apprentice butcher and loved the job. I absolutely loved it and if it hadn’t have been, hadn’t have been for the war, I’m certain I would have remained in that trade for the rest of my working life. However, Sutton in Ashfield area, Huthwaite and Sutton in Ashfield area rapidly became an area, a training area for a battalion of troops. And also there were Yanks at er, at Kingsmill Hospital and there were the paratroopers at Hardwick Hall five miles away. They was the elite and they used to come in at night time and the village had, all the village halls had been turned into dance halls so the town was thriving at night time, with hundreds probably thousands of, of soldiers coming in to be entertained for the night. It was so exciting. Now, the paratroopers were special. They were elite and when they used to come in they used to create skirmishes in the, you know, to a teenager it was so exciting and at the same time my brother had joined the navy and he was he was in, in, he was stationed at Brightlingsea at what they called [unclear] sorry [unclear]
[pause]. Yes.
HJF: German U-boats used to, used to speed in and torpedo any, any ship that was in the area. At the same time, at this particular time I had a girlfriend whose brother was in aircrew and he was a wireless operator and he used to come home at the weekends and I used to listen to his stories about his fly, what was happening while he was flying. This really stimulated my interest so I just had to get to it, get involved. Now, on the 18th of February 1943 I attended the, enlistment section-
[pause]
On the 18th of February 1943 I attended the recruitment section, recruitment place at Mansfield to be given a medical for aircrew which I passed A1. How excited I was when the medical officer told me that I’d passed A1. Not that my excitement was allowed to last long because shortly after the recruiting officer called me in to his office to give me the bad news. Now then, this is, ‘I’m very sorry to tell you, you can’t be accepted. We can’t accept anyone who is in a reserved occupation.’ I was completely devastated because I’d took a year to get in. I pleaded for them to change their mind, ‘Sorry you can only be accepted if the authorities release you from your reserved occupation.’ To a teenager desperate to volunteer this was terrible news. It felt as if a bomb had been dropped on me by the recruiting officer. My factory manager showed no sympathy at all. He firmly informed me that unless I was medically released I would have to remain with them until the end of the war. The problem was that I needed to be A1 to be accepted for air crew and unfit to be released from the reserved occupation. How do I get around that? Continuously I racked my brain to try and think of a way that I could overcome this problem. Months went by and I began to despair. It seemed as if my chance of joining the RAF had gone forever. At last I had an idea. I wondered, will it work? No matter whether it did or not I just had to try something. So with my heart in my mouth I arranged an appointment with my factory doctor. Attending the appointment I showed the doctor all the spots on my face, and telling him that I considered that the heavy fumes of the machine grinder on which, on which I was working was giving me dermatitis. I then requested that I should be released from this work. My case was so thin and I knew it but I had to try something. I then had to listen to the doctor giving me a real dressing down. How awful he made me feel. He ended his lecture by saying, ‘You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. Men are dying for the likes of you.’ Feeling very subdued I then quietly said, ‘But doctor, I only want releasing from munitions because I volunteered and been accepted for air crew. The RAF won’t take me if you don’t release me.’ With my heart in my mouth I waited as he fixed his gaze on me for what seemed an eternity. He looked me straight in the eye. Then without another word he reached for his pen and signed my release. As I got up to leave the surgery he leaned forward and shook my hand and wished me luck. All these problems had taken a year to resolve. Is that?
MJ: Yes
HJF: Now, having reached my ninetieth year I can’t help thinking how much slimmer my chances of surviving this terrible war would have been if I’d been allowed to leave my reserved occupation in 1943. Although I knew that being a rear gunner was a very dangerous job with a very high casualty rate, so much so that rear gunners were named Charlies and that’s another name for stupid fool, it didn’t matter to me what others thought. This was the way I wished to serve my country. Yeah, so that goes on to my “Tail End Charlie’s Story”.
MJ: Ahum
HJF: This was the title I gave to my book which I’ve, which I’ve had produced, “A Tail End Charlie’s Story” ‘cause I think that fits the bill. Right, on the 6th of March 1944 I reported to the induction centre at Lords Cricket Ground, London along with hundreds more recruits for entry to the RAF. Lords Cricket Ground was used during the 1939 ‘45 war as an induction centre for air crew. A roll call, a roll call was made during which, to my astonishment, a second HJ Flowers’ name was called out. It was then that I first met Henry James Flowers. Henry told me that he came from a village called Bargoed in South Wales. From then onwards we became constant companions. We remained together during basic training at RAF Bridgnorth after which we were posted to RAF Stormy Down for air gunnery training. Fortunately, we were kept together during flying training and in actual fact ended up serving on both 50 and 44 squadron, squadrons. Now, ok, recruitment before I get on to?
MJ: You can put it whatever way you like.
HJF: Does that sound alright?
MJ: Yes it’s fine. It’s superb. I mean I know exactly what you mean when you said that London had had a right bash of it.
HJF: Yeah.
MJ: I mean, my nan got bombed out twice. You know, nothing left.
HJF: We got friends, we’ve got a friend that lost everything twice. Absolutely everything.
MJ: Yeah, yeah.
HJF: She lived near where I was stationed yeah.
MJ: ‘Cause the road that they lived in doesn’t exist.
HJF: Yeah.
MJ: And so on. You know people don’t-
HJF: Yeah.
MJ: Realise this sort of thing. Are you ready?
HJF: Yeah ok. After disembarking from the troop train at Bridgnorth railway station we formed up in threes. Shouldering our heavy kit bags we began the long march to camp. The last mile was up a steep hill. As new recruits, unfit, with no marching experience at all, all carrying a heavy kit bag the formation rapidly turned into a gaggle. By the time we reached the camp everyone was on the point of collapse. Next morning, after the recruits had been formed up on the parade ground the NCO in charge of the parade informed us that we’d be confined to barracks for the entire six weeks - square bashing, ‘You will not be allowed in public until you can be a credit to your uniform.’ From that moment on we spent every minute of every day drilling and exercising. My muscles screamed out from the strains. The course seemed never ending. Much to my surprise the strain became less. I was obviously getting fitter. Not content with keeping us hard all day we were also given guard duty at night. On Saturday and Sunday a percentage of recruits were picked out to stand guard throughout the weekend. It was just the luck of the draw as to whether your name would come out. By the end of the fourth week I was badly missing my girlfriend Eunice so despite the ban on boots, new boots, new recruits leaving camp I began to make plans. Now, having been on guard duty at a sentry box on the edge of the wood at the rear of the camp I knew there was a way in and out. Those on guard duty were given instructions to arrest anyone there but be that it may I let loads of them through expecting them to make the, make the favour, if I, if I needed it. I noticed. Now desperate to return home I was willing to risk anything. So after duty on the fourth Friday I slipped out of camp by the back way and began thumbing lifts. In uniform they came very easily and with a matter of hours I was back home again. Early next day I walked the two miles to my girlfriend’s house. This was the first time that Eunice had seen me in uniform and I knew that I’d created a good impression. We had a lovely day and a half together. I can still remember going for a walk that Sunday morning along a very attractive country walk known locally as Skegby Bottoms. The sun shone brightly as we sat there. I was at peace with the world. I wanted it to go on and on and on. Late Sunday night I successfully re-entered the camp through the back. Through the woods. In no time I was back in my billet. The moment Taffy saw me he exclaimed, ‘Your name was called out several times for guard duty over the weekend.’ ‘Oh dear,’ I thought, ‘Blimey I shall be on a charge on Monday morning’. Sure enough I was called off the parade ground and told to report to the commanding officer. Shaking like a leaf I stood to attention in front of him. ‘Sorry. I didn’t hear my name called out.’ Not impressed, he said ‘Fourteen days jankers and do it again and I’ll throw the book at you.’ Next day I reported to the cookhouse in full pike. Just my luck to be the only one on jankers, jankers at the time to peel the thousands and thousands of potatoes needed to feed a camp full of hungry airmen and then to wash the pots that had to be used for meals. Gosh it was hard work. You may have thought that all this effort made my weekend worthwhile. I’m in no doubt at all. It was.
Now then, what did I get to? 3rd of, 3rd of June 1944 see us arrive at Bridgnorth for flying training. Now this training was on Avro Ansons. It had one mid upper turret and we used to fire at drogues that used to come by with a, with a Spitfire travelling a drogue alongside us. And quite honestly, quite honestly it was I think, I think the pilot was, of the Spitfire, was in more danger of us hitting him than us hitting the drogue. Anyway, when, when we finished this course, at the end of this course I managed to get a day’s, a weekend off so I travelled home to see Eunice. She was in the Land Army near Grimley and I remember as I arrived at the, at the hostel, at the hostel Eunice was telling me about the, about someone who was getting married. One of the Land Army girls getting married. And I could feel that this was the, that there seemed to be a longing in her voice which suggested to me that this was the right time to once again, for the hundredth time ask her if she’d marry me. And so as she turned to me I said, ‘Well shall we get married then?’ and she said, ‘Yes, let’s.’ I’m not joking with you I could have fallen through the floor. Anyway, we decided there and then. She said, ‘What are you doing now?’ I said well I’m going now to Husbands Bosworth for a ten week course on OTU training and she says, ‘Ok when will that finish?’ Well we calculated it out that it would finish about October the 14th. She says, ‘Ok we’ll add a week to that. We’ll add a week to that. We’ll get married on the 21st of October.’ Not for one minute did we think the things that could happen in a flying training. So naïve we were. Anyway, a week before, two weeks before the October the 21st flying training, all flying training was cancelled through bad weather. We didn’t fly for nearly eight days. Comes the 20th, comes the 20th of, of October and I’m getting married the next day. I’d still got four hours flying to do that morning. Anyway, by sheer luck we got the flying training finished, finished by dinnertime. We then needed to, to get cleared from the station, and of course collect all our gear because we’re moving to another, another station. And, and we’d got, in those days, today if you wanted to get cleared from a section they do it on computer, can do it in five minutes. In our day we used to have to go to every section to get our chitty signed, mainly on foot. Fortunately, Taffy managed to borrow a couple, a couple of bikes. He was going to be my best man so he’s coming with me. We circulated and of course there’s a tremendous area in, in, on an RAF aerodrome and we circulated the area on these cycles and I’m certain that everybody, every section knew we were getting married because as we were, the next day every section and as we, the next day, and as we came in they immediately signed my chit. Bless them all. Anyway the admin section was closing at 5 o’clock. We arrived there at five minutes to five. The admin, the officer then cleared us from the section and, and he says, ‘Ok, right, you can go now. Report to RAF Wigsley on Monday the 23rd.’ I thought, bloody hell, two days. We then had to start [laughs] we then had to start our journey. Now in those days, in those days there was very little transport. We had to, we had to cadge lifts we had to catch buses, local buses, train journeys, local train journeys. It took us all night. We didn’t arrive in Sutton in Ashfield until half past eight on the Saturday the 21st. Having been awake all night I was absolutely shattered. Anyway we walked out of Sutton in Ashfield railway station and Eunice lived a mile to the right and I, and I lived two miles to the left. Taffy walked to tell Eunice we’d arrived. I walked the two miles to Huthwaite to, to my parent’s home. Now there was so much happening. The wedding was planned for 2.30. There was so much happening I never got any rest. I was absolutely cream crackered. By, I remember, I remember we were in, as we got in, as we got in to the taxi turned up to St Mary’s Church at Sutton in Ashfield and I says to my mum ‘Oh I can’t.’ ‘Go on, go on, ‘she said, ‘Oh no. You’re here now. Go on. Get going.’ Anyway we got into the church and I’m not joking I stood at the altar and I was absolutely asleep on my feet. I can’t explain how tired I was. Anyway, after a while suddenly there was a thump in my ribs and I opened my eyes and said. ‘I will’ and it was back to sleep again and quite honestly that’s all I remember of my, of my, of my wedding. And then photographs. The photographer wouldn’t take any photographs at the church. He insisted that we went down to his studio which was a couple of miles away and then he only took, would agree to take two photographs. One of Eunice and I and the wedding group. How different it is these days. Wedding photographers dominate the wedding and take millions of photographs and charge a tremendous amount of money. They do, don’t they? Anyway, Eunice was late when she arrived at the, at the church. She told me later, she said as the taxi drew away from her house a funeral appeared. Now it’s bad luck for you to go past a funeral. That’s what they said. So, quickly the taxi driver changed direction, changed direction to, to avoid it. Lo and behold they were just about to turn up the drive to the, to the church it was quite a long drive two or three hundred yards long and another, another funeral appeared so quickly he turns around and went back again and made another deviation. Well, she says she thought this a sign our wedding wouldn’t last. Well sixty nine years, seventy years later I think probably her premonition was a little bit wrong.
[laughs].
Fortunately, the Sunday, Sunday, a telegram arrived at my home to tell me that I’d been given eight days leave. So, so we didn’t have to report to Wigsley until eight days later but I want to go back a little bit now to my flying training because quite honestly flying training on Wellington bombers, it was a marvellous experience. Dangerous. Always exciting. Mostly enjoyable but quite honestly we were like kids playing with big new toys and we couldn’t get enough of it. Now, many things happened, happened, that quite honestly, that could, we could have bought it there and then. I remember one instant. One instant comes to, comes to mind. This was a training flight up to the north of Scotland and, and this was one for the first night trips that we had. Now, navigation in those days was very, very difficult because they didn’t have radar, the navigator didn’t have radar. He had to use his maps and they used to even use the stars and, and even used to ask us, ask us for things on the ground so that was how primitive it was. Anyway, we flew up to the north of Scotland. It was six and half hour trip and when we got to the north of Scotland we were due to turn, to turn starboard to come down the North Sea but instead of telling us to turn starboard the navigator told Skip to turn port so instead of travelling down the North Sea we were travelling down the Irish Sea. In fact we were rapidly going towards bloody America [laughs] and extended the flight trip quite a long way. He said the reason why this happened was because he accidently pulled his, we were flying above twelve thousand feet and he accidently pulled his, his oxygen cylinder thing out, connection out so he, but that was his story. Anyway, we goes down the North Sea. I remember we got back to, we got back to the Husbands Bosworth area and I remember looking down. It was absolutely, early hours of the morning, it was absolutely pitch dark. You could not see a thing on the ground and Jack the navigator says, ‘Ok Skip. We’re over base.’ Skip says, ‘Can’t see anything.’ So he says, ‘Ok, dog leg.’ so he does a five minute dog leg, comes back again and he says, ‘Right Skip. We’re over base.’ And when he says that there’s a chorus of voices says, ‘You’re up the spout, you’re bloody up the spout we can’t see anything.’ Ok, another dog leg. We did another dog leg and another dog leg and then when we gets to the fourth one there’s a voice, the flight engineer butts in and says, ‘Hey. Hey, we’ve only got, you’d better pull your fingers out, we’ve only got four minutes of fuel left.’ I was sitting, I was in the rear turret listening to all this going and quite honestly my ring was beginning to twitch. I thought to myself, ‘bloody hell if they don’t do something about it we’re going to crash’. So I switched it on. I say, ‘Skip why don’t you call somebody up?’ He says, ‘Oh yes.’ He then calls out the base. The base called in the, the aircraft codes, signs and immediately lights, the aerodrome lights flicked on straight beneath us. Navigator, nav, had been right all the time. We made an emergency landing. We taxied around this, we taxied round, around the perimeter. We turns in to, turns into our bay and as we turned into the bay, before we were in, the engines stopped. That’s how close we were. Ok now then. I’ll go forward now to after my wedding ok.
MJ: Yeah.
HJF: Are we still going?
MJ: Yeah.
HJF: After, after the wedding I reported to, to Wiglsey. Now, once again we, one, one time comes to mind we had a complete and utter cock up on Stirlings. I remember we were corkscrewing, corkscrew starboard, corkscrew port and the Skipper was saying to me diving starboard, diving starboard, climbing port, climbing starboard, rolling port, so on. The corkscrew. And in the middle of this cork, and this Spitfire was attacking us, was attacking us from behind and I was giving a running commentary on, on him coming in and all of a sudden the aircraft levelled out and a panicked voice came over the, came over the intercom, ‘Put on parachutes, jump, jump, jump.’ And I thought, ‘bloody hell, I can’t believe this’. The next second, ‘Put on parachute. Jump, jump, jump. I can’t hold it, I can’t hold it, I can’t hold it.’ I thought to myself ‘bloody hell there’s something happening I can’t see’ and I thought to myself, I thought ‘I’ll have a go’. So I drags the turret around to the beam, pulls on my slider, green as grass I was at the time. Now with experience I’d have opened the door and just flopped back outwards but green as grass I dragged myself out of the turret outside and I was standing outside and the wind was terrible. You can imagine. We were twelve thousand feet, travelling two hundred miles an hour and I’m looking down. I remember standing there with one, with my feet on the edge of the turret, one arm’s holding the top of the turret and I looked down and cows in fields looked, looked like flies. I thought, ‘Bloody hell I wonder if my parachute will open.’ Anyway, I thought to myself I’ll have a go. So therefore, I thought, I started, I released one hand and took, took, began to take my helmet off and quite honestly it was, there was so much noise outside I could hardly hear anything. All of a sudden I heard a faint voice and I didn’t care what it was it I thought, that’s somebody shouting something. It took me twenty minutes to get out but five seconds to get back in. I was back in like a bloody flash and I held my hands to my ears and it was the flight engineer. We’d got a, we’d got a extra member of the crew that time, he was a tour expired extra flight engineer and he was shouting, ‘Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go.’ So, right, well what happened? When we got down as we came down to land I was so stressed up with this thing as I climbed, as I came out of the turret into the fuselage I just asked myself, I just had to know whether my chute would have opened. So I immediately, I pulled the rip cord and my parachute spilled out into the fuselage. It cost me two and six pence to have it, now that’s a lot of money. When you think it’s only two pounds a week for me and I was giving a pound to my Mrs that was a lot of money to me but I didn’t care. It gave me the confidence that at least, at least it opened. Now, when we got out, when we got out I say, I says, I says to Skip, ‘What happened?’ He says, ‘Well’ he says, ‘We were diving,’ he says, ‘We were diving and climbing and rolling in the what do you call it,’ he says, ‘And all of a sudden a window just at the back of my head, unbeknown to me, flew out.’ The window had got, on the inside, had got a lead weighted curtain and as it, as the window blew out it sucked this lead weighted curtain out and he says it just started banging on the side of the fuselage bang, bang, bang, bang he says, ‘I suddenly heard this bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang tremendous noise’ he says, and at that precise moment by sheer coincidence the instructor, flight engineer, the bloody fool, sitting at the side of me, the starboard outer oversped. Now, the standard procedure is to pull the nose of the aircraft like climbing a hill to steady it down. Now, instead of just poking the Skipper or, or switching his intercom on which was at his mouth and saying what was happening he immediately dragged on, dragged as hard as he could on the controls to lift. Now, the Skipper at the time because he was hearing this banging noise was trying to keep the aircraft straight and level and at the same time the flight engineer, and they were pulling against each other and I’m not joking it was a complete and utter cock up but I’ve often thought to myself what did that bloody Spitfire driver think of me when he saw me standing outside, climbing out, he must have thought I were doolally.
[laughs]
Another thing happened whilst we were in flying training. We were doing the corkscrewing. All of a sudden all four engines cut out. Quick as a flash Skipper slammed the aircraft in to a vertical dive and kick-started the engine. Fortunately got them going, fortunately we got plenty of height, kick-started them. By golly that did make your heart flutter [laughs] and then our final training, training trip with, on Stirlings we had an emergency landing and we had, we had to make an emergency landing at Woodhall Spa, the home of 617 of all places, and as we, as we touched down all of a sudden the Stirling swung off, swung off the runway and headed straight for flying control. Now the Stirling was a massive aircraft and, and the cockpit, when the cockpit, when it was stopped, when it was stationery the cockpit was level with the windows in flying control and we, we careered across the, across the, the grass and stopped about a couple of foot from the, from the flying control windows and Skip said he could see flying control people running away from the windows in panic and when we stopped he says, he switches on, he says, ‘Flying control, ‘he says, ‘Can you see where we are?’ and a droll voice, a dry voice came over, ‘Yes’.[laughs] Anyway, the bonus for this was we spent the night at Woodhall Spa and we were, we were able to spend the night in the mess and we were able to mix with those elite airmen, the 617 people. It was absolutely wonderful. Anyway, the next morning we flew the thirty five minutes back, back, back to base at Wigsley and that was our last training trip, flying training trip. The next day we went to, we transferred to RAF Syerston for Lanc finish school which we spent two weeks there. At the end of the two weeks we were being moved to squadron. We were now fully trained. Now, for some reason we, on the 24th of January 1945 we, we boarded a RAF transport to take us from there to squadron. For some reason and I don’t know why we were taken to RAF Balderton for the night. Now, we were absolutely dead beat when we got there. It’s a bit sexy.
[laughs]
Absolutely dead beat so we went to bed very early. Now, we were in a Nissen hut with about twenty beds and there was entrances both sides. Now, fast asleep, late on, I don’t know, about midnight, all of a sudden there was a door opened the other end and a couple, excited couple came in and they obviously didn’t know there was anybody there. Short time later the excited talk, sexual. [laughs] and this went on and on and on and on. Anyway satisfaction came in time and they crept out laughingly and after they’d gone a quiet voice says, ‘Did you hear all that?’ [laughs] It goes without saying that fit aircrew fully trained wouldn’t miss a thing like that. It certainly brightened my night up. The next day we were a, to 50 squadron Skellingthorpe. We arrived at RAF Skellingthorpe on the 25th of January 1945. Now, the atmosphere, there was quite an atmosphere on training, training, on training stations but it was nothing like this. There was that feeling like an electric feeling. There was so much bustle and things going off, watching, actually we were nearly month before we did our first operation but we, all right? Seeing aircraft take off, disappearing, new aircraft coming in, the wild, wild parties that were in the mess. The atmosphere was absolutely wonderful. Now as I said we were a month, we were doing training during the time and I remember wonder, wonder if, if I’m going to be up to it because you never know do you? Anyway, it was the 5th of March, the 5th of March by the time we, we did our first operation and what an operation. What an eye opener. Now, I remember we walked into the, we walked into the briefing room, and The excited chatter and then all of a sudden the briefing officer came in quite pleased and deathly silence instantly. Your target for tonight will be Bohlen. Bohlen. Apparently, I found out, it was going to be a ten hour trip. Your, your route will be passing the Ruhr, in the Ruhr, in the Ruhr 3 Group will be attacking the Ruhr. In that area expect to see enemy fighters attacking in pairs. One from above and one below. If one gets above, if one gets beneath you they will shoot you to pieces. So be careful. Beware. Anyway, briefing finished and we’re standing outside. They’re all chatting all excitedly together and I’m talking to Flight Lieutenant Ling’s rear gunner and I can’t remember his name but I knew that he’d been, he was getting towards the end of his tour. I says to him how are things going, what was the flight like? Obviously, obviously I was quite uptight and he said, ‘Oh don’t worry, there’s nothing to it. Nothing to it. And I said something to him which I’m not going to tell you about which made me think, made me think ‘You’re not taking it seriously enough.’ He said, ‘Oh’ he says, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve never seen, I’ve never seen a fighter at all.’ Unbelievably, we came, we came across our first Messerschmitt less than four hours later. He say, ‘Don’t worry. There’s nothing to it’ and I thought, anyway they got the chop on the next trip, the next what do you call it, you see. Anyway, I remember going out to the aircraft at Skellingthorpe and the tension in me was absolutely sky high and I remember it didn’t seem to take us long, didn’t seem to take us long before we were taxiing out and as we were taxiing out I was looking around and there was all, I’m certain as I remember 61 squadron were also going that night and there were all these aircraft taxiing around the perimeter. The atmosphere was absolutely electric and all above, above, above all above us we could see the Lincoln cathedral in front of us and all above we could see heavily laden bombers gradually circling up, circling around. The tension inside me just went just like that. I was ready for it. Anyway, we turns on to the peri track, taxies up to the runway, waits our turn, turns on to, turns on to the, turns on to the, on to the runway. Skip calls, ‘Brakes on. Full power.’ And then, ‘Right, brakes off’ and, and we began to surge forward and alongside the, alongside the runway was a line of ground staff waving us off. What a wonderful take off. What a wonderful send off. Anyway, this was the first time that we’d been in a, in a Lancaster with a full bomb load. We’d got fourteen thousand pounds of bombs on and two thousand two hundred gallons of fuel. It was as much as any aircraft, Lancaster aircraft could carry in those days. I remember we were surging along, we were surging along, the vibration, this was the first time I’d heard the engines on full throttle right through the gate. The aircraft was absolutely, all the fuselage was vibrating with the tension of it. Anyway, as I, as I remember one two five was the one, was about the speed that you used to take off. I remember engineers started to call out one twenty, one twenty one, one twenty two, one twenty four, one twenty five and then Skip dragged the aircraft and you could feel the fuselage vibrating as he was fighting to get the aircraft into the air and then we had another problem. The Skellingthorpe runway was aimed straight at Lincoln Cathedral on top of that hill. Now that’s like a pimple today but to us in, in 1945 it was a terrible object to get over and we used to have to be banking while still at stalling speed. We used to be banking to miss that, well, I say ‘bloody cathedral, oh God’ and then when we got to a thousand feet it was such a relief. Anyway, I remember, I remember gradually climbed up. Our operation height was twelve thousand feet. I remember circling around. There were hundreds of aircraft. I think there were about two hundred and fifty aircraft involved in that operation. They were oh wonderful sight, wonderful sight gradually, circling around getting up to height and then a green light, Very light came from came out of one of the, the leading aircraft and we immediately began into a bomb, into a stream and we started to head out for Germany over the North Sea. Now, gradually, we’d set off at half past five at night, March and it was getting dark, getting quite dusk and as we set out, as we set out over the, over the North Sea gradually the light disappeared and so the aircraft, the aircraft, gradually, my night vision was developed. It used to take you twenty minutes for your night vision to develop and, and gradually all you could see was just, you could see Lancasters when they were the image of them when they were very close and you could see the sparks of the engine and we used to, we used to, we’d been told, warned about these twin fighters so we were swaying from side to side so we could look straight beneath us so we wouldn’t be caught out and I remember we’d been flying over the North Sea and were now entering, entering, enemy territory for the first time. The tension built up in, the adrenalin. I should say adrenalin building up inside me and I remember I was looking, it was now almost pitch dark, although it was a moonlit night it was still dark and I remember watching this, watching this Lancaster drift slowly underneath us, about twenty or thirty feet beneath us and it had just drifted underneath us. I could just see the sparks from its engines and just as he drifted there was a tremendous explosion just a short distance behind us and the explosion, the light split in half, then the next second, two, two seconds later there were two tremendous explosions. Two Lancasters rammed each other and both exploded in mid-air and then it was back to complete darkness. It hadn’t, the shock, the shock it hadn’t taken me long to realise the difficulties of being on operational active service but you know sadly fourteen air crew, airmen had lost their lives in that second but the shockwave was, it was so close to us the shockwave came right through our aircraft, violently vibrated us and quite honestly I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had blown us down. Anyway, we carried on. We climbed up to twelve thousand feet. Now, it was a moonlit night, a moonlit night and the clouds, the clouds looked like a rolling sea. It was so picturesque. The clouds were up to ten thousand feet, we were two thousand feet above and it looked so picturesque. It was lovely and I remember my concentration was absolutely sky high and all of a sudden I saw something which could have been a fly on a window, it was just a slight movement right down deep, deep on, on the starboard side and I thought to myself, bloody hell a fighter. Can’t be. Who said he’d never seen a fighter? Yeah, I thought, anyway it was at that moment that I made, through inexperience, something which could have been, could have been fatal to us because I should, all my, all my training, I should have in actual fact immediately called and, and warned the crew what was happening. Nevertheless, despite this mistake I automatically aimed my guns at it. Gradually this object moved gradually astern and when it was dead astern at ten thousand feet gradually it started coming up. Now when it got to, when it got level with us the image of the aircraft filled my, filled the ring on my gun sight and it was at that moment that the hundreds of hours that I’d spent viewing, viewing pictures, silhouettes of, of fighter, of enemy fighters, fighters on screens in training paid off because I recognised it a Messerschmitt 109. Immediately, without, without a second thought I pressed my, pressed my button and gave it a prolonged burst straight at the fighter and I watched my, I watched my tracers go straight in it. At this fraction of a second I immediately switched on and shouted, ‘Fighter. Fighter. Dive, dive, dive.’ And the Skipper slammed the aircraft straight into a, into a vertical dive and he’s shouting me, ‘You mean corkscrew. You mean corkscrew.’ But I didn’t. I meant dive because there was no deflection required because he was absolutely dead astern. Anyway, I watched my tracers go straight into it, straight into it and the fighter immediately went straight down as if out of control straight into the cloud. I’m convinced now that I shot it down but of course rules do not allow you to claim anything when you don’t see the ground and we were at ten thousand, the clouds at ten thousand feet so therefore that’s but I’m convinced that I got him. Anyway, we carried on to the target, this was another couple of hours RT silence and all of a sudden, all of a sudden a voice, RT silence was broken. Now, a voice came over as calm as I’m talking to you, ‘Control to Link One how do you read me?’ And it was the, it was the voice of the controller who I feel certain was Wing Commander Stubbs, a man I had a great respect for. ‘Link One to control. Loud and clear. Control to Link One go in and mark the target.’ Ok. Right, carry,’ I listened to this conversation. We’re gradually, now we’re quite some distance from the target but gradually now the pathfinders are now beginning to drop their flares so the sky’s beginning to light up so I’m beginning to see lights in, lights in the sky and gradually as we are approaching as we are getting nearer and nearer the target. I’m listening to the conversation of the controller and the Link One now when everything was done and everything had been marked with satisfaction controller says, ‘Ok. Ok Link One, go home, go home.’ Then he called out which I’m certain was Bandwagon. They called the bomber stream Bandwagon, ‘Hello Bandwagon,’ and that was our call sign, ‘Hello Bandwagon. Come in and bomb the target. Bomb red flares,’ and he was giving instruction to which flares to bomb and when he’d finished all that he says, he says, now, ‘No flak. Watch out for fighters.’ So, anyway, we approach the target and just before the target, just before we reach the target all of a sudden a single engine fighter which I’m certain was a Messerschmitt 109 suddenly made a run at us. I immediately, now I was listening to the bomb aimer and Skipper beginning to give instructions for our bombing run and our instructions was that you should not corkscrew during that time. We were taught to be quiet so immediately I aimed and fired. Calamity. The back of my gun sight dropped out and a white light there, I’d been five hours in pitch darkness, and this white light bomb sight bulb was right in front of me. Now, it only took me seconds to put it together but twenty minutes for my, for my night vision to come back and during that time anything could have happened. I couldn’t have done a thing. I could hear what was happening and all the talk and I couldn’t see a thing. What happened to that fighter I will never know. Anyway, we went on our bomber run and, and I could hear the bomb aimer saying, ‘Left, left, steady, steady, steady. Ok bombs gone.’ Now, the bombs used to drop at about a thousand feet per second. We were twelve thousand feet so twelve seconds later he says, ‘Photograph taken.’ Now, immediately Skipper slammed the nose of the aircraft right down. We went straight down a couple of thousand feet straight into the cloud and we stayed in those clouds for hours. Anyway, we came out of the clouds eventually and then lo and behold as we came out of the cloud over to our, over to our side I can’t remember if it was port or starboard there was a bloody Lancaster flying on with all its lights on. The stupid buggers. With all his lights on. We scooted away from it as quick as we could. So anyway we got back to our area where the cathedral, over the cathedral. Now, Skellingthorpe, Scampton and Waddingon, their circuits almost intertwined around the cathedral, more or less. Now, when we used to come over the cathedral you can- now you can imagine everything was visual so therefore there were loyal scores of very, very tired, tired aircrew so all, all desperate to get home, desperate to get home so there was a tremendous danger of collision and another thing, another thing, the night before this, the night of the 4th , 4th of March, three intruders had shot three Lancasters down in the circuit at Waddington and one at Fulbeck so this had immediately filtered through us so instead of relaxing as one do after, after being in the turret for nigh on ten, eleven hours my concentration as we switched our landing lights on, we just used to have landing lights while we were in the circuit, and I remember as we switched our landing lights on about, about twenty aircraft close by and they must have been in different circuits switched their lights on. Now, I remember I was, my concentration was sky high and I remember thinking Skip calls twenty degrees of flap, a hundred degree of flap and I was all the time searching all the way around thinking to myself I’m not going to be caught out by an intruder because this was the dangerous, you’re like a sitting duck then. We came in to land we stopped in dispersal all the twelve hours of tension drained out of me. I thought to myself ‘bloody hell and this is only the first one’. And that was my first operation. Yeah. Another interesting operation was the one to Lutzkendorf which was on the 14th of March 1945. There were two hundred and forty five Lancasters involved and eleven Mosquitos. Eighteen aircraft failed to return. Never even reported in the paper and that’s nearly two hundred people it’s just, yeah, anyway. Anyway, took off about ten minutes to five. I remember we, we flew past the Ruhr and once again rear group, 3 Group were attacking the Ruhr and I remember as we passed by I could see the fight that was going on. I could see flak shells bursting in the air. Tremendous. I could see air to air tracer bullets from, from bomber to fighter. I could see bombs dropping and I thought bloody hell we’ve got another, we’ve got another two hours to go yet and then we continued a short distance away and now there was another problem. We’d been warned that there was a fighter, a fighter aerodrome, a night fighter ‘drome in this area which had a light shining from its roof, from the top of flying control so that, so that we knew from one that there would be, there would be fighters, night fighters in strength in this area and this light was on specifically so they could stay in the air until the last minute, down, refuel and be up again. Now, I remember I suddenly saw this and the adrenalin was such, I thought to myself God the night fighter are bound. All of a sudden I saw the airfield had been strafed. The light disappeared. Obviously, it must have been one of our aircraft. One of our aircraft. I know full well that putting the light out didn’t, didn’t make much difference to the fact that fighters were around but boy it did relieve me. Anyway, we carried on to the, we carried on to the target and once again, once again, I can’t remember the controller it might have been Wing Commander Stubbs but he went through the same procedure, went through the same procedure. I remember him saying at the end, ‘No flak. Look out for fighters. Watch out for fighters’. This was our fourth trip and the tension was beginning to build up in me as we were going through the target and I remember without me intercom switched on I was listening to the, I was listening to the bomb aimer saying, ‘Left, left, left, steady’ and I was shouting, I was shouting in a loud voice, ‘Drop the bloody thing. Drop the bloody thing and let’s get out of here.’ Anyway, after what seemed an interminable length of time he said ‘Bombs gone.’ Skip immediately slammed the aircraft down into a dive and disappeared from the, and as we as we left the target I thought to myself, ‘thank God, we got away with it’. Little did I know. Now, I remember we’d left the target, we’d been gone probably ten and fifteen minutes and I could still hear that controller over the target. ‘Bomb green, the green flare,’ do this, undershoot it, do this, do that. It was absolutely inspirational. He must have been, he seemed to have been over the target hours. Anyway as I’m listening to this left from the target about approximately fifteen minutes when all of a sudden a fighter flare burst straight above us. From complete darkness it was like switching the light on, an electric light on in a pitch dark room. The shock of it made me sink deep in, deep in to my, in to my turret. My seat. Mind you, immediately my mind started working like lightning and I, looking out of the, looking out of, I searched the area. I searched the area all the way, all the way. I searched the area all over and sure enough high on the starboard side I could my left I could see an FW190 coming in fast dragging all I’d been looking I hadn’t been turning my turret around so as quick as I can I’m dragging my turret around. I didn’t have time to aim. So, immediately I got anywhere near I pressed my, I starts firing, my gun starts rattling away I’m dragging, trying to drag my tracer, tracer bullets into it and I’m watching it. Then all of a sudden with this, this aircraft coming in fast I felt rather than saw something on my, deep on the starboard side and forcing myself to take my eyes off this aircraft I had a quick glance to the right, to the right, and there deep down, deep down on the port side. It’s my right but it’s the port side of the aircraft, deep down on the port side was a JU88 almost underneath us and I thought, bloody hell. Immediately I realised that if he could get underneath us he was going to shoot us to pieces so I stopped firing at him, drags my turret around and as soon as I can, as soon as I can I began firing at this JU88 and immediately, immediately they both of them broke away. Now, they played cat and mouse with us for twenty six minutes. Now, that might not seem a long, a long time but as each, each attack only lasted about ten seconds. How many times they came in I don’t know but anyway Lancasters, Lancasters didn’t have any power assisted controls. The Skipper was corkscrewing continuously for forty minutes. The physical effort on him must have been absolutely terrific. Anyway, the tension inside me remained after. I didn’t realise they were twenty six minutes. After a time, after a long time with my tension, with my concentration, still sky high they disappeared. They must have decided that, that, you know, either run out of fuel or they realised they might as well go for an easier target. Anyway, the navigator, I only know it was twenty six minutes because the navigator told me later but when we got back I remember the relief as we passed over the English coast. It was absolutely fantastic. I know we weren’t safe but the relief to be over. It seemed so much comfort to be coming over, over this country. Now, when we, when we, after we came in to land I found out that all ten thousand rounds that I’d supplied to my rear turret - I’d fired every one. There wasn’t one left. So if we’d have had another attack by one of those fighters I couldn’t have done anything about it. That was as close we were to disaster. Phew. And sadly, sadly Flight Lieutenant Ling and crew did not return from this, from this operation and I’m not surprised. Well I shouldn’t say this but, no I won’t say any further. I did think that the rear gunner was getting a bit blasé and probably he wasn’t doing what he should have been doing but I don’t know. I can’t say anything more about that. But that was my fourth operation.
Another interesting operation was a daylight operation to Nordhausen. There were two hundred and forty Lancasters involved. Now during briefing we’d been told that the SS troops had been transferred to Nordhausen to protect Hitler. Now, this was what made it interesting with thoughts that we might be bombing Hitler. Now, we didn’t have any flak or fighters to contend with but all we had was problems. Now, I remember we took off. Generally speaking most of my operations in fact all of the other operations we used to take off from, from Skellingthorpe and go straight out to the North Sea. On this occasion we were going to travel south, south and meet up with 3 group aircraft and, and, and travel to Nordhausen with them, you see, which, which meant we were going to drive past the London area. Now, we’d been warned at briefing be careful near the London area. Their ack ack gunners don’t like strangers, unidentified aircraft flying over. They will fire first and ask second so beware. Anyway, having taken off in the early hours of the morning it was still absolutely pitch. 2.30 we took off. It was still pitch dark as we went by, went by the London area and I remember as we arrived there, there were absolutely hundreds and hundreds of searchlights shining up and quite honestly we were so close to them I thought, I was really on tenterhooks, because I thought bloody hell, thinking about the fourteen thousand pound of bombs underneath us and those, those twitchy ack ack gunners. Anyway, I was looking down, all of a sudden Skip slammed the aircraft in to a vertical drive. Now the g-force on me was tremendous. It drew me, stretched my body up and my body, my head hit the top of the fuselage with a bang, the top of the turret rather with a bang and just at that precise second, now you’ve got to remember that I had no perspex at all in front of me, so, therefore, therefore the open air was just there and just as that happened a Lancaster aircraft flew just over and I swear to this day that if I’d have put my hand out I could have touched that aircraft. Another one of our nine lives. Anyway we carried on. We met with up 3 Group, over Reading it was, and we drifted out over the, over the, on to enemy territory. I remember we were so widely spaced out well, we were used to flying at night-time, we didn’t need to be in a gaggle when all of a sudden there was a voice came up, RT silence broken and it was obviously the fighter leader controller, fighter leader and he shouts up ‘Close up. Close up. How do you expect me to bloody protect you?’ Anyway, we got to Nordhausen and boy did we close up. Our operational height was about twelve thousand feet as far as I could remember. I can’t remember. Somewhere in that region. But two hundred and fifty aircraft then from being miles apart suddenly homed in together in to a thin line and I remember there was aircraft all the way around us, almost touching us. Now, I didn’t mind the ones at the side or the ones below or the ones straight above us but I was leaning forward in my turret and looking up. The ones I was concerned of one above in front that I couldn’t see because I thought to myself they’ll be dropping bloody bombs on us and I’m looking at them when all of a sudden, all of a sudden a full load of bombs missed the back of my turret with this, with a fraction. Almost touching us. Ten, ten one thousand pound bombs and a cookie. Now, they go down like lightning. Fifty foot beneath us was a Lancaster. The first, the first thousand pounder hit this fuselage right in the middle, right, just at the back of the mid upper turret. I cringed, expecting it to explode but lo and behold the bomb went straight through the fuselage and disappeared, continued down. The next, the next thousand pounder hit the middle of the wing and I still couldn’t believe it. I’m still cringing again and it bounced back and bounced off. Now the cookie, which was a contact bomb, they must have had err, you know biometric things that didn’t explode above five hundred feet or something but the cookie was a contact bomb. It missed the side of the fuselage by a skin of paint. Anyway, I remember the, the aircraft disappeared and there was a lot, there was a lot happening. I forgot about it. Anyway, by sheer chance at the end of the war I was listening to Canadian troops embarking on to the ship to go home and, and the person being interviewed was a pilot and it was an interesting story and do you know he went through what I’ve just told you. It was the, it was the pilot of this aircraft and he said, he said, and it was so pleasing to know, that they’d staggered back to the North Sea and dropped their bombs and got, and they survived the war. Anyway, anyway we were coming over the North Sea about, about ten thousand feet and all of a sudden I saw two Lancasters drop right down to zero feet and I thought bloody hell they’re going in. They’re going in. And all of a sudden from the back of one of them I suddenly saw foam appear and it was like watching a motorboat swing, speeding along and this foam behind, I can’t remember, two engines, two of the engines, this foam was behind it for about four hundred yards when gradually it picked up, climbed up and I thought to myself, ‘oh they’re ok. They’re alright’. Anyway, by sheer coincidence four days later when we returned from an operation we were diverted to Spilsby of all places, 44 squadron which I eventually finished up on and we were able to get out of the aircraft to have a walk you know and have a stretch and I was walking by this aircraft which had got props bent and all the props on one side. I think it was just on one side [laughs] I think it was just on one side. They were bent almost double and I, and there was a ground staff working on it and I said, ‘God, what happened to that aircraft?’ He said, ‘The silly buggers,’ he says, ‘This bloke and another bloke coming from an operation a few days ago, they were playing about to find which one could get closer to the sea. This silly bugger dragged his props in the water. Nearly drowned his rear gunner.’ I thought to myself, ‘God, how did they manage to keep the aircraft flying with damage like that?’ Anyway, he said they were being court martialled. I don’t know. Anyway, and that was that.
[laughs]
Another very interesting operation was a daylight operation to Hamburg oil installations, Germany on the 9th of April 1945. During this operation twenty five jet fighters ME262s attacked the bomber force. This was, I believe, the first time that any fighters were ever used during any war, first attack. Anyway, there were, there were, there were fifty seven bombers involved. 50 squadron, 61 squadron I think we got twelve and something like that, 61 squadron and 617 and 9 squadron. We were to, we were to drop, we were to drop thousand pounders on the oil installations and 617 and 9 squadron were to drop a tall boy. I can’t remember if eight thousand or twelve thousand pound bombs on the, on the submarine pens. Now, the thing was that because of the weight of the Tall Boy they’d taken out of the Lancasters, 617 and 9 squadrons they’d taken away the bomb doors and had actually taken off the mid upper turret to lighten the aircraft so to be able to carry it ready to take off and because of this we were, we were instructed that we were to fly in a gaggle and fly as quick, as close as possible to support them. Now another thing the apparently 309 squadron, a Polish squadron flying mustangs, would escort us and 65 squadron were also taking part. Now, we took off at about well 14.48 I believe it was. The weather was perfect and I remember our operational height was twelve thousand feet. Now, I remember we were passing over, we were passed quickly, over, over the, over the North Sea and I’m thinking to myself now Hamburg was a very, very dangerous place. A very important place to Germany. Still is. Still is. But because of this over the war, during the war they’d built up a tremendous defence and if you had any aircraft attacking there we could have heavy losses so we knew that we were in for a difficult time when we got there. I remember passing over, over Germany and all of a sudden every so often the flak was bursting, shells were bursting shells were bursting around us but quite honestly I never gave them a thought. You know I was used to night, night bombing where the flak was a bright light but I never gave as I say, probably I should have done. Anyway we got to, got to Hamburg, near to Hamburg and I rotated my turret. I can’t remember port or starboard side but we were coming up and turned square to the right over Hamburg.
Other: Can somebody come in here?
Going back a little bit I remember as we were going over the, going over the North Sea it was a completely cloudless sky, brilliant sun and I remember thinking to myself where are those bloody fighters supposed to be, that are supposed to be protecting us? Three squadrons were supposed to be protecting us but every so often, every so often we saw right in the distance swirling around oh I thought, ‘Oh lovely. There they are.’ Anyway we carried on. I remember as we, as we, as we entered, got over mainland Europe gradually every so often we’d hear the phuf phuf of flak shells at the side of us which I just ignored. I don’t know a bit complacent probably but I just didn’t care about them. Didn’t take any, anyway we gets to Hamburg and Hamburg, I’m just, I’m repeating myself now. Hamburg was a very special place. Was then. Is now. And during the war years they’d built up a tremendous, tremendous defensive force. They, they could send up a box barrage of flak in an instant and I remember we were approaching, approaching Hamburg and I can’t remember which side we were. Left or right. But I leaned forward, leaned forward and I looked and turned my turret to the beam and leaned forward to look forward and I could almost see in front of us and I could see the target as we were approaching her and I’m not joking I have never seen flak like it. We were, we were, I think we, I think we were, our height was we bombed from about sixteen thousand feet but up to around our bombing height there was a complete black cloud of flak shells bursting out and I remember thinking to myself, bloody hell we’re never going to get through that. Now I’m just going to divert a little bit because we were at the back of the fifty seven aircraft and a friend of mine on 61 squadron, Ted Beswick, he was in the front aircraft and he was telling me later he says they were watching this predict, this flak. I forget what you call it. Predicted flak. It gradually approaching him and he said until one burst right in front of the nose and he says and, and, and parts flew through the front through the bomb aimers position and, and, and badly injured the engine, the bomb aimer. Anyway, we carried on to the target. We turned on to the target and we, I’m not joking with you, I can’t describe what it was like going through the flak. It was absolutely frightening you. I was thinking, I say, frightening. Anyway, believe it or not we went, we got through the target unscathed. We dropped our bombs and I understand it was a successful bombing. Anyway, we left the target and I could see aircraft. I feel certain I could see aircraft around, some damaged but nobody shot down. Anyway we’d left the target and we’d been left a few minutes. I then turned my turret around and I thought to myself, bloody hell, we’re back marker. Sitting duck for any fighters. So immediately I switched on. I said, ‘Skip, Skip we’re back marker. Sitting duck for any fighters.’ He says, ‘Ok. Ok.’ So he immediately shoves full throttle on and gradually, gradually we moved forward so we could see aircraft behind me. That made me feel a bit better. Now, a short time later and I can’t remember how long, all of a sudden twenty five ME262s attacked the formation. I only saw five but I know from later reports it was twenty five but I saw five aircraft coming along the, coming along the ground level and I, I called, ‘Skip Skip I can see, I can see five small aircraft on almost at ground level.’ God, I’ve never seen aircraft travelling so fast. They, they, they began to climb. I says, ‘God they’re climbing faster than I’ve ever seen any aircraft dive.’ Within seconds they were up to our operational height. They levelled out and came straight at us canons blazing. Canons blazing’s straight through us like a dose of salts. Now, one of them come straight at us and I’m firing as hard trying, trying as hard as I could ‘cause it’s like lightning is happening, trying to drag my tracer bullets into it and it came so close I thought to myself it’s going to ram us and I’m not joking he then swung in between us and another Lancaster by my side, by our side and, and I could see the, I could see fighter, I could see the fighter pilot as close as I can see you now. Anyway, I’m swinging and firing my turret and all of a sudden I realised that I’m firin my, still firing my bullets straight through this Lancaster at the side of me. I lifted my arms like lightning off, off my, off my off my controls and, and, and I thought to myself bloody hell, I thought to myself might have shot down my, the aircraft but of course you can’t shoot an aircraft down by firing straight at it you have to fire in front of them but that was fortunate because it was a 617 aircraft. I don’t know what would have been said. Anyway, we, we’d left the target, we left the target and only a few seconds later after they’d attacked us all of a sudden by the side of us the aircraft, the back marker aircraft exploded, broke in half and began to drop straight down. Now, when it had dropped about a thousand feet I saw although the rear turret would immediately lose, as it broke in half, lose, lose any control we had we had a handle which we could turn and swing the turret around. Anyway, after about a thousand feet I saw the, this is another story I’ll tell you in a bit which I’d forgotten to tell you. Forgotten to tell you. I watched this rear gunner drag himself out of the, out of the turret and fall away and I thought to myself oh thank God, he’s, thank God he’s, going to get away with it. He was a friend of mine. Anyway, the parachute opened and a few seconds puff it exploded in flames and then I had to watch this friend of mine, friend of mine struggling, drop away, gradually drop away to his death. Now, I’ll tell you a little, I’d forgotten to tell you but when we went out to the aircraft, when we went out to the aircraft after we’d had the briefing you all race out and you all try to get on to the buses as there were buses and lorries. Now, the buses were a lot of comfort so therefore you raced to get in those. Now we raced in and I sat in the front seat and, and sitting at the side of me was Norman, Norman Garfield Fenton. Friend of mine. I say he’s a friend, he was a squadron friend not that I knew much about his private life other than that he was from Kettering. But I says to him, ‘What aircraft are you in? He says, ‘Fred. F Freddy.’ Now F Freddy, we did four ops in there so it gave us, gave us chat, you know, something to talk about. Anyway we got to the dispersal area and, and climbs out. All of us rush to our aircraft and climbed aboard and did our pre-start checks and afterwards there was still an hour or so to go. We climb out of the fuselage and, and, and went Taffy and I went, went and sat down, sat down on the grass and a few seconds later Norman walks across and we sat down and there we are. I think we took off at 2.30 so it was quite warm and where we sat there chatting away talking about what we were going to do. I remember I do believe he said he’d got a little child. I can’t remember but I think he said he had a young family but we were chatting about what we were doing and four hours later I watched him die. You know, it really did affect me. I mean, at night time you just disappeared, didn’t have the same effect on you but knowing, I recognised the aircraft as it dropped away as V and F. I could see it clearly so I knew this was Dennis, Dennis struggling and nearly got out and I had to watch him fall and it did affect me for quite a long time and poor Dennis and Flying Officer [Berryman] who was his Skipper and, and one of the other crew are buried in, in Hamburg but oh dear it did affect me for quite a long time that. Ok. Now one thing I’ve got when we got back to briefing. When we got back to briefing we turned around and told the briefing officers we’d been attacked by jets and they says not possible. Not possible. Not possible. There’s no, there’s no airfields around Hamburg for jets but little did we know, little did we know that jets, the Germans were taking off from motorways. Ten out of ten for them for innovation. But apparently the, the powers that be killed the story because they were so fearful of the effect it might on morale, of morale of our aircrew. But then I want to go back a little bit now to Ted Beswick. He saw all, I only saw five but he saw all twenty five. Now, one of them came at us came at them and he shouts port corkscrew, corkscrew, go, go but of course they couldn’t because they were in gaggle. Anyway when the, when the ME262s had attacked they began to swung around and began to go around to reposition they could only do one or two attacks because of limited fuel but one drew up by accident right on, right on their starboard side I can’t remember starboard or port side. Anyway he immediately fired and saw his tracer bullets go straight into it, straight into it and immediately, immediately the aircraft went straight down as if out of control and he watched it spiral down. Ted is convinced that he made a kill, he made a kill. Of course he couldn’t claim it because once again he didn’t see the ground. But they had another incident they did. They had a hang-up bomb. They couldn’t get rid of it and try as they might they couldn’t get rid of it so they started to go back and try to get rid of it in the, in the North Sea. They still couldn’t get rid of it so they decided to bring it back, bring it back to Skelly. Now as they came in, in to land there was a bang as they touched down and the bomb dropped on to the bomb doors. Now, they pulled up immediately at the end of runway, got out of the aircraft, scooted away from the aircraft called up and a short time later, a short time later well some time later along comes the ground staff, gingerly opens up the, opens up the, winds open the, the bomb doors, bomb doors. Two of them stands there, catches a thousand pounder and then, you know, we have got a lot to thank those air crew people, ground staff people for. Wonderful, wonderful unsung heroes. One, one interesting operation was to [?] in Norway. I remember there was, I can’t remember how many aircraft, several hundred aircraft involved. But we’d been in we’d been told that we were to fly at zero level up the North Sea and I remember in the half-light seeing probably a couple of hundred Lancasters flying, almost touching, almost touching the waves. It was so exciting. I loved it I did. And I’m certain Skip enjoyed it just as a much as I did. Anyway, we got to the, we got to the, got to Norway and, I can’t remember how long it took us. Anyway, we climbed up to bombing height which would be, it would have been about ten to twelve thousand feet. Now, I seemed to remember one gun, one heavy gun but if I’m to believe records, records say there was no, no flak but I seem to remember one gun as we approached. One heavy gun. Anyway, we came in, we came in to bomb and, and we’re virtually on our bombing run and I’m listening to the Skip and the bomb aimer conversing when all of a sudden, now, always before when the Skip had had to dive the aircraft had to change direction of the aircraft it had always been a dive. On this occasion it was different all together. All of a sudden the aircraft reared straight up. Now, I remember I’m clinging on to my controls and I was transfixed. I was transfixed and even though my head still thumped the top of the turret because of the reaction of the aircraft swinging and at the same time we used to carry our flasks and sweets and chocolates given to people, aircrew and I remember them coming straight up in the air, straight up in the air and as the aircraft, aircraft levelled they all went straight out of the window and I said oh sod it. I was saving those for the return. But another thing happened. Ass this was happening. I’m hearing a swirl, a swirling noise of machine gun noise coming into my turret. Thousands of bullets was coming along the ducts into the aircraft. Now, I didn’t realise this was what happened but they came in and completely jammed the turret. Anyway, we levelled out. We crept back over the sea and got back home but if anything had happened we couldn’t have done a thing about that. Now, the thing is when I was on that operation, in our billet, in our billet was another crew err if you just give me a second I’ll remember his name. I’ll just get, now this operation was on the 25th, 26th of April 1945. Now, in my billet, in my billet was another crew. Now this crew, they disappeared and I didn’t know what happened so I just, this is when people got the chop things, just used to take there was usually two crews to a Nissan but when they got the chop they used to take, just take their things out. They disappeared. Never heard anything about them. Anyway, last year, last year at our reunion, our reunion a fellow approaches near our memorial. He says, ‘Hello James. Do you remember me? And I says to him, ‘I don’t think so. I can’t remember.’ Well, he says ‘You were in the next bed to me on 1945. January 1945.’ I says, ‘Oh yes.’ I said ‘What happened to you then?’ I said, ‘You disappeared didn’t you?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ He says, he said, ‘When you were going on [?] we were on Exodus.’ Exodus operation. Fetching prisoners back from, from Europe, probably Brussels. Anyway, he says, ‘We dropped the prisoners, the POWs, ex-POWs down he said and headed for home and on the way back we crashed.’ He said, the, the ‘We had problems, engine problems and in trying to avoid these houses the wing tip hit the ground and, he says, ‘And it slewed into the ground. My turret was thrown off into, into a field.’ He said, ‘My guns were buried in the ground.’ He said, ‘I was in hospital for a week.’ He said the mid upper turret, the mid upper gunner got away with it he got a broken leg but the rest of the crew were all killed. I said, ‘Oh good God.’ I says, ‘I wondered what happened.’ They just disappeared. So there you are. Made contact all those years later but how did he finally manage? Probably he managed to find me because with me doing so much on our website. I’m better known. More people know me then I remember them. That’s probably it isn’t it. Could be couldn’t it? But an interesting story that isn’t it? There you are.
MJ: Ahum
HJF: Now then. I want to carry on. On the 1st of June, is it on? Switch her on.
MJ: It is on.
HJF: Yeah. On the 1st of June ‘45 we were transferred from 50 squadron to 44 squadron to be part of, to be part of Tiger Force. The intention was to, to, to fly us straight out, quickly out to the Far East. As a matter of fact Okinawa was going to be our base. So we, we went, we transferred to Spilsby. Now, from day one we started doing high level training. Anyway, I can’t remember but it was a few days after we got, one of our trips, it was only one and three quarter hour trips I think it was just about the worst one of all. I remember we’d got fourteen thousand pounds of bombs we were going to drop into dispersal area in the North Sea and as we taxied around all of a sudden, the port, the port inner set on fire. Now, the smoke was coming and filling my turret and I thought to myself silly bugger put your oxygen mask on, puthering in to me. Anyway, rapidly the, the engine was feathered and after a few minutes the Skip calls up flying control and tells them, ‘Engine fire. Waiting for instructions.’ We waited for instructions and a few minutes later the flying control calls, ‘Right, start the engine up. Give it a run up. Take off when you’re ready.’ When he switched off there was a chorus of voices, ‘We’re not bloody going, the stupid buggers, that engine wants checking. We’re not bloody going.’
MJ: Ahum
HJF: ‘We’re not bloody going.’ Anyway, Skipper in the meantime started the engine up. He revs it up, he says, ‘It seems ok to me. We’ve got to go.’ And we kept saying, ‘We’re not bloody going.’ Anyway, we turns on to the, and eventually gets and I’m not joking I was full of trepidation. I could feel in my water that something else was going to happen. Now, anyway we’d just got our wheels off the deck and the starboard outer seized. Now, let’s just think about it. We’ve got a dicky port inner and we got a, a seized starboard outer and we’ve got fourteen thousand pound of bomb. I’m not, that’s as much as an aircraft immediately started to vibrate telling me, telling me she’s going to stall. She’s going to stall. Now, quick as that I thought, my apprehension just disappeared. I thought to myself I’m going to, I’m going to jump no matter what the height. So, quick as lightning I swings my turret to beams, pulls open the doors. like a flash I was sitting outside and there I sat outside listening to, feeling the violent vibrations of the, of the aircraft as it gradually gained speed and height. It took us about thirty minutes to get up to about two thousand feet and while I’m sitting there just thinking about myself there our poor old Skipper was at the front fighting to keep this aircraft in the air. What a brilliant, brilliant Skipper. Anyway, we eventually get, gradually the vibration stopped. We got to the dispersal area, drops the bombs as near, as near as we could and returned. That, that trip took an hour and a quarter and it seemed the longest one of all. Good God we were so close and then what turned out to be our final trip, final flight actually for seventy, nearly seventy years as far as I was concerned. We were taking part in a dodge operation. Which, Dodge Operations were returning, returning British soldiers, taking, taking Italian troops back to Italy, to Bari in Italy and bringing British soldiers home. Now, we’d been so many times we used to fly visual. We used to go down to Marseilles, turn left over Marseilles, out over, out over the North Sea to the tip of Corsica and, and, and then make for Rome and over Rome straight for Bari. Now we were so casual about this we used to fly you know, anyway as it turns out the engineer, the engineer used to do a bit of piloting every so often. They used to keep their hand in. Anyway, fortunately the engineer had strapped himself in. Now we were carrying twenty one, twenty one Italians and I was sitting in the fuselage, in the fuselage. I was more or less a steward. Now, we were climbing, we were climbing up to ten tenths cloud. Now it was a very, very stormy day. Very, very hot day. Tropical storms everywhere and as it turned out we were the only aircraft only two of us arrived at Bari. Aircraft were diverted all different places. Anyway, we were climbing up through ten tenths cloud at ten thousand feet when all of a sudden cause safety height over, to cross the tip of Corsica, safety height being eleven thousand feet when all of a sudden the aircraft veered straight up, straight up and we flew slap bang into the centre of cunim, Now the tremendous upward force hit the belly of the, hit the aircraft and flung it straight up in the air. She stalled, dropped on her back and started to vertically drop down. Now, the Skipper standing by the side of the engineer as I say he was, he was, he was piloting was thrown up to the roof and he dragged himself around the, and for a time he thought to himself bloody hell we’re going. I’m going to drag myself back. Then he realised that the flight engineer was beginning to get a bit of joy so he drags himself around the fuselage, the side of the fuselage to a standing position alongside him and there was only single controls in a Lancaster. He then grabs hold of the controls and the two of them used all their strength to pull the aircraft out, out of its vertical dive. Now, as I told you I was in the back of the aircraft looking after these, looking after the Italians. I was thrown up to the ceiling and a water tank that was there for them floated up in the air, floated up in the air and were virtually trapped beyond the fuselage and as I looked, I could look at the back and there was, we’d got a Lancaster wheel in in the back, in the back which we were taking. Probably somebody had a burst tire. They’d left it loose. The silly buggers had left it loose. I watched this, watched this Lancaster wheel do a full circle of the fuselage. It smashed the auto gyro and it went around and it hit the machine gun ducts and right to the side of the ducts were the, were the rudder bar controls and I thought to myself, I was praying that it wouldn’t come rolling towards us when the next second, the next second with a slam I was banged down, banged down on to the floor, banged down on to the floor and I dragged myself up. All the Italians were in a complete panic and without thinking I just slotted the bloke at the side of me, slotted him, knocked him down and said, ‘Lie down.’ I made him lie down. Anyway, then I thought to myself, I thought as I’m standing there I thought to myself, actually I called Skip up. I said oh I think one of these, one of these Italians had pulled the [aerial] controls and we knew we’d lost an aircraft through somebody pulled themselves, their all external inside the aircraft and pulled them up and it had caused the aircraft to crash because it was almost you know in a position where they couldn’t change so I thought that’s what had happened, Anyway, as I’m standing looking all of a sudden the aircraft reared up again but not quite as bad. So I thought sod it I’ll have a look at this. Now our mid upper gunner had been transferred because of the end of the war you see, had transferred so I climbed into his turret and I was amazed. We should have been at eleven thousand feet to cross over safely over the tip of Corsica. We were then travelling along the coastline on the edge of the mountains, parallel. Somehow or other in the process of diving vertically we’d changed direction. Now, I don’t know whether it were luck or whether it was the skill of our pilot but anyway we turned, we were flying along the coast of, coast, coastline. Now then we came into land. Now at Bari, at Bari there was only one single runway. One single runway. And, and aircraft were, aircraft were positioned, were parked either side of the runway. Yanks on the left, yanks on one side and all Lancasters on the other. Now, as we came in to land, another thing, just at the end of the runway was a, was a large quarry and on very hot days, on very hot days used to cause an air pocket above the, right above the end of the runway. Now Skipper might have forgotten that or it might have been just because let’s face it I was stressed up and I was only looking after them, so God only knows how he was feeling but anyway as we came in to land we dropped from about sixty foot straight down. We hit the ground, we hit the tarmac with such a bang and the aircraft reared off, reared off, slewed to, slewed to port and, and coming, taxiing right down, right down just in front of us was a, was a flying fortress. We were heading straight for it. Skip immediately slams port throttle, full port throttle on, slews the aircraft and I could feel the undercarriage bending. Why it didn’t break I don’t know and there we are slewing across to the other side and going straight for the Lancs and he shoved full throttle on the other side and we straightened out and that was it and we levelled out. Now, you might have thought that was enough trouble for one thing but when we were coming up, we stayed there four days and I remember I was standing, we were waiting to return and we were standing about halfway along the runway and there were thousands of troops, thousands. There were hundreds of aircraft and thousands of troops, American and British, and we were watching the first Lancaster to take off and it came by us and it was almost as it came flashing by us it was almost at take-off speed when all of a sudden it turned completely ninety degrees. Now there were four line I think, I can’t remember whether it was three line or four lines but it went through the first ones, first ones, missed all the aircraft but hit another one in the line absolutely broadside and just as it hit its undercarriage collapsed but when it hit it’s props were churning into the side of the aircraft churning, churning. Now, thousands of us ran across thinking to ourself, expecting that there would be many many fatalities, many many fatalities but when we got to the aircraft, when we got to the aircraft there was a great big hole in the nose of the aircraft. Three, three, three soldiers climbed out of the front of the nose and do you know and people were pouring out of all sides of the engine. All sides of the aircraft. Do you know there were thousands of people out but do you know to my knowledge there was only one person, there were nobody killed and one person injured and that was he was injured through flying glass. Absolutely fantastic. I thought to myself this is a bloody mugs game. It’s time I pack this game up. Well I’ll tell you now it was an uneventful trip back to the, back to the, back to England but that was the last time I flew in any aircraft until about 2012.
[laughs] 1.38.08
Now, at the, I now over the years, over the years over the last, nearly twenty years I’ve been involved with the 50 and 61 Squadron Association website. Now, quite honestly I never, until, until I was in my seventies I’d never used a computer. But anyway, anyway I was instrumental in helping, helping, eventually, not for a start in helping to start up our website 50 and 61 Squadron Association websites. Now, I have a veteran’s album. I don’t do hardly anything these days Mike [Connock] does it but until, at our reunion 209 Air Vice Marshall Nigel Baldwin came up to me and says, ‘James, I’ve got a story here, an interesting story which would be good for your veterans album.’ Now, it was then I was interested to, I was then introduced to a person called Chris Keltie. Now -
Other: I don’t want to hear your secrets.
HJF: Yeah Chris Keltie. He then, Chris told me a story which at the time -
Other: Make him at least give you a drink.
HJF: No. No. You’re alright.
Other: At least make him. Now I’m telling you. Go on.
HJF: Oh did, did we bring that cup of coffee in? Did we leave that coffee in there? I don’t think we did did we?
MJ: No.
HJF: Oh bloody hell we forgot. Oh sorry.
HJF: As I say. Chris Keltie. Chris Keltie. He told me a story which at the time I just didn’t believe. I couldn’t believe that anybody, because of my experiences, I couldn’t believe that anybody could do what I was being told but he was telling me that a pilot whilst severely injured and weakened by loss of blood had regained control of an earthbound Lancaster and, and in pitch darkness brought the thing in to land and thereby saved the lives of, as it turned out, three of his crew members. For this he got nothing. Not even get, now I’ll tell you the full story. On the, it’s Victoria stuff. Victoria Cross stuff. I’m not joking with you. It was in July 1944 I can’t quite remember exact date. It might have been the 4th or 5th. Anyway, they successfully, they were bombing a V1 bomb site. It was 61 squadron aircraft. QR D Dog was the aircraft. Bill North was, Bill North, flight lieutenant. He was the flying officer at the time but it was Bill North, Bill North was the pilot and his aircraft was QR Dog. Now they were to, from thirteen thousand feet they were going to bomb the V1 sites. Now, which they were the first aircraft to bomb it and after, as they left the target an FW190 sprayed their aircraft. It blew away the fin, the port fin. It blew away the port fin. Blew away the port outer engine and fuel tank and it also it splattered the middle of the turret. Now, the mid upper gunner, now I used to say it was either between six and eight bullets, non life saving bullets in his body. Unbelievable. Splattered the turret. Anyway, it splattered all the Perspex, the cockpit Perspex and, and the pilot screamed out in agony as four bullets hit him. Two in his thigh and two in his left arm. Now, his left arm one of them hit the nerve and it paralysed his arm so his arm was flailing there. Now, immediately and the aircraft immediately begins, it’s earthbound screaming towards the earth. He immediately gives instructions to bail out and begins to drag himself out to go to the escape hatch. Now, as he drags himself out of the seat the flight engineer who is sitting by his side reaches back. Now, as the pilot had sat on his parachute. Now, but the, but the flight engineer and the rest most of the crew, the rear turret and rear gunner all had clip on chutes now his was clipped on the fuselage. Now, he reaches back to unclip his, his ‘chute off the fuselage, the side of the fuselage and as he pulls it off it’s been shot to pieces by bullets. It’s just at that point Bill was about to drop out of the escape hatch. Quickly he grabs hold of his shoulder and shouts my parachutes gone, my parachutes gone. Now, nobody would have blamed Bill North If he’d have thought to himself nothing I can do. I’m badly injured myself and just to have gone just to continue to drop out but without one second thought he made a conscious decision to drag himself back into his to his controls. Now, the, the landing an aircraft, a Lancaster is a two man job. You need, you need the help of the flight engineer. The flight engineer was frozen with fear. Couldn’t do anything. Now, Bill North, with one hand, his adrenalin must have been five hundred percent I have no idea how he did it but unbelievably with the aircraft screaming earthbound he regains control and in pitch darkness not only did he regain control but in this very heavily wooded area he found, he found a clearing, brought the aircraft in to land from an impossible height at an impossible speed. No, no flaps involved because the bloke couldn’t, the flight engineer couldn’t do anything. Had the presence of mind as he brought the aircraft in to land it tail down so there would be less danger of fuel tank, of fuel explosion and landed and when it became stationery he was so weak from the loss of blood that he slipped into unconsciousness. Now then, as it turned out not only had he saved the life of the flight engineer alongside him but apparently the mid upper gunner and another person, I think wireless operator, were both trapped in the fuselage because their turret ‘chutes had been shot to pieces, so they, as I say he slipped into unconsciousness so they had to carry, carry him, they had to carry him out of the aircraft and as they laid him on the grass at the side of the plane he slipped into unconsciousness and they thought he was dying. Anyway, time went by. The French were involved but I can’t remember who else was involved but in time the Germans came, whisked him into a hospital and he remained in hospital for several months after which he was, he was transferred to a concentration camp and he finished the war, and finished the war in a concentration camp. For this he didn’t get any mention in despatches. Not even a mention in despatches. Absolutely disgraceful. This is, this is, this is VC stuff. Now when Mr Ball when, when Nigel Ball contacted me I, I wrote this story, this was several years before, I wrote his story on my website. Now last year, October during last year the, the sons of, of Bill North, he’d passed away the year before, wrote to David Cameron to thank him for what he’d to done to get the air crew their memorial in London and thanked him for getting the clasp. Bloody clasp. Ridiculous. Anyway, anyway out of the blue, credit to David Cameron. David Cameron phoned them personally. No wrote to them personally and invited to them to come and see him at the, at the House of Commons. Now, they decided that what a golden opportunity this to try and get a posthumous award for their father. So they put together a delegation of about ten people and they wanted a representative of the squadron association to be, to be, to be with them. Now, as to whether I was the only one or not I’ve no idea but I was the person that was invited to go. Now, I travelled down to London and I remember, I remember we, we, David Cameron was wonderful actually. I remember he took us and we were chatting to him in his office and he was chatting to all the party and I couldn’t hear him he was right at the far end of the room and I says, ‘I can’t hear.’ And he says, ‘ok’ and got, upped sticks and came and sat right to the side of me and I’m listening to them talking. Now, quite honestly as I was listening to him you know how people are when they’re talking to someone of higher authority? They, they become meek and mild don’t they? And I’m listening and I don’t hear very well. After they’d been going on for quite some time I thought to myself they’re missing the point so in actual fact I had spoken to him and told him that why I was there to represent the association and I, I interceded. I said, ‘But sir, we’re missing the point of our visit.’ and I says and I then went into detail of this, of what Bill North had done and I says to him this is bloody Victoria Cross stuff and for this he gets nothing. Not even a mention in despatches. This is a complete disgrace and I remember, I remember David Cameron looked set aback and he looks at me and says, ‘Well I don’t know. All the hassle I’m getting here.’ He said in a friendly way. It wasn’t nasty. ‘All the hassle I’m getting here and he says the hassle I’ve had in question time today and he says and it’s my birthday today.’ And I said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ He said, ‘It’s my birthday today.’ I says, ‘It’s mine as well’ and he reached over and he said, ‘Birthday boys.’ [laughs]
[laugh]
There you are but do you know something we had, we had a celebration last year for my ninetieth birthday and, and, and seventieth wedding anniversary and last year. It was in October. October. And last year, about three weeks before our, before our party a friend of ours and I don’t know how he got this phone number my friend answers the phone and this voice says, ‘Hello, this is David Cameron here’ and she says, ‘Oh don’t – tell me another one.’ And he said, ‘No. This is David Cameron ringing from the House of Commons. Can you give me the details of Mr and Mrs Flowers celebrations’ on the, and you know he said, ‘Because I want to send them a letter’ and lo and behold lo and behold on the, on the, my birthday arrives a letter comes, ‘Dear Mr Flowers,’ from the House of Commons ‘I’m writing to you wish you a very happy ninetieth birthday. This is a marvellous occasion and I’m sure you will use this opportunity to celebrate all your many achievements and all you have seen and experienced. I would like to send you, Samantha and my best wishes for a wonderful birthday.’ That was on the 9th of October. On the 21st of October we gets another one. ‘Dear Mr and Mrs Flowers I am delighted to send my congratulations to you both on your seventieth wedding anniversary. It’s a huge achievement to celebrate such a long and happy marriage. A great example to family and friends and your local community. Samantha and I would like to wish you all the best on your anniversary. We very much hope you enjoy your celebrations. Have a lovely day. David Cameron.’ We of course did have the letter from the queen we all know the queen the queen had millions. She can’t do it personally do it you know that’s a secretary but to think that David Cameron made the effort during such political time to ring my friend up to find out details of our celebrations and then to ring us up and send this. As a matter of fact I sent him a Christmas card and he sent me a Christmas card back.
[laughs]
There you are, now, that’s different isn’t it? In conclusion I would like to go back to the time in 1941/2, I can’t remember the exact date, my first sighting of my dear wife. Of my Eunice. I remember at the time I was working on munitions twelve hour shifts a day, week about and I was on daylight day shifts this time and I’d finished at 7 o’clock, cycled home and, and home and quick change and cycled back two miles to Sutton in Ashfield baths which had been converted to a dance hall and as I went in it had a balcony. I went in about 9 o’clock. I climbed the stairs to the balcony and I remember looking down and it was a teeming mass of dancing local people, RAF, navy all having an absolute, and a wonderful band with all the top, all having, and the RAC band was there. It had top musicians in it and I remember I was looking down and I saw right beneath me I saw this beautiful young lady in a yellow and white check dress. I’m not saying anything wrong but she was flitting from one male to, from one friend to another. She was obviously the life and soul of the party and I thought to myself God what a cracker. So, quick as lightning I rushed downstairs and I stood in the background until the opportunity came and I tapped her on the shoulder and I said to her, ‘Can I have a dance please?’ and ‘ Yes.’ And the first time I held her in my arms oh she didn’t have make me quiver and it was the first time that I met my dear wife. [laughs] How I ended up with her I will never know. She was so beautiful and so energetic. She was out every night dancing. There were thousands of soldiers all around training all on the lookout, all on the lookout for, for, for as beautiful women and here I was just working on munitions. Nothing going for me. My chances of making a go with her were very very slim. Anyway, gradually I became a friends. It was two years before she’d call me a friend. But there you are. That’s how I met my dear wife and there we are seventy years later. Love of my life. Still feel as we did as all those years ago. Beautiful woman. Still beautiful woman still beautiful in my eyes. How’s that. As I say I’m in my ninetieth year and I can’t help thinking of my family. Thinking of the time on the 25th October when our first son Ian was born and when he was accidently deaf when he was only thirteen and a half you never get over it, time never heals it. The birth of my second son Richard and when he was accidentally shot in the head by his wife. He was so lucky to have survived. Then my third Phillip born ‘68, ‘58 and to his lovely daughter. She was absolutely beautiful. Passed away when she was two years and nine months. Then there was my fourth son was a whopper when he was born and the, and the midwife says to my he’s the biggest baby I’ve ever had and she said ironically he’s the biggest baby I’ve had as well. Then I think to the stresses and strains and excitement I felt during my aircrew years and the thirty two years as a driving examiner and to the pleasure we felt on the birth of two granddaughters, eight grandsons, fourteen great grandchildren and finally I recall the seventy years that I’ve been married to my dear wife Eunice. I can’t help thinking of all the times I felt like throwing her in the bloody river or burying her with the plants in the garden yet despite all this she still remains the love of my life. Such wonderful memories.
I would like to end by saying that during the time that we, as a crew, were involved in bomber operations we were attacked by ME109s, JU88s, FW190s, ME262s jet fighters, passed through flak you could have walked on, almost touched passing aircraft, almost crashed through fuel shortage and fell vertically from eleven thousand to five hundred feet. Nothing special. Just the normal sort of thing that most Bomber Command aircrew had to put up with during World War 2. Happy days.
MJ: On behalf of the Bomber Command I’d like to thank James Flowers for his interview on the 2nd of June 2015. This is Michael Jeffries, recordist.
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with James FlowersSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber CommandDescriptionAn account of the resourceHorace James Flowers was born and grew up in Huthwaite, Nottinghamshire. He became an apprentice butcher before being released to volunteer for the Royal Air Force in 1944. He trained as an air gunner at RAF Bridgnorth, RAF Wigsley and RAF Syerston and attained the rank of flight sergeant, serving largely with 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe. He recounts his experiences on several operations, including Bohlen, Nordhausen, Lutzendorf and Hamburg. He was transferred to 44 squadron in June 1945 as part of the intended Tiger Force and also took part in Operation Dodge. He also discusses how he met his wife, Eunice, and their marriage in 1944, his role with the 50/61 Squadron Association after the war, authorship of a memoir ‘A Tail End Charlie’s Story’ and the occasion of his ninetieth birthday when he received a call from the Prime Minister, David Cameron.CreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceMichael JeffriesPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-06-02ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceJulie WilliamsHeather HughesFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource01:58:11 audio recordingLanguageA language of the resourceengIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAFlowersHJ150602, PFlowersHJ1501, PFlowersHJ1502Spatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Great BritainEngland--LincolnshireEngland--NottinghamshireGermany--BöhlenGermany--Nordhausen (Thuringia)Germany--LutzendorfGermany--HamburgGermanyRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.TypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.194319441945CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.Pending review44 Squadron50 Squadronair gunneraircrewbombingmilitary ethosOperation Dodge (1945)RAF BridgnorthRAF SkellingthorpeRAF SyerstonRAF WigsleyTiger forcehttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/19/43/PAutonJ1503.2.jpgfcd84ad8b587a4e098652670dd63b4c8https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/19/43/AAutonJF150608.1.mp36ee59b7c7d75a4b3e1001264485de6aeDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceAuton, JimJ AutonDescriptionAn account of the resource11 items. The collection relates to Sergeant Jim Auton MBE (b. 1924). He was badly injured when his 178 Squadron B-24 was hit by anti-aircraft fire during an operation from Italy. The collection contains an oral history interview and ten photographs.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jim Auton and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. DateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-07-30IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAuton, JPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentCB: Well Jim, perhaps we could start with your date and place of birth please?
JA: Yes I was born at Henlow, my father was an officer in the RAF and he happened to be stationed at Henlow when I happened to be born.
CB: And what date was that?
JA: That was the 13th of April, 1924
CB: And what do you remember about your childhood?
JA: I remember when he was transferred to Cranwell, I started infant school at Cranwell and we had to walk across the aerodrome to school, and there were about twenty of us and we were told to walk in groups together and if you see an aeroplane coming in, stand still [emphasis] so he can avoid you and we used to see aeroplanes coming in to land on the grass field, they were bi-planes of course and we’d wave to the pilot and if he waved back to us that made our day because pilots were our heroes and we all wanted to be like daddy and join the RAF when we were old enough and next to the school playground there was an aircraft dump, old fuselages, they’d taken the engines out and the instruments but we’d climb into the cockpits and stand there and go ‘dud dud du du’, we were shooting down Germans when we were five years old, we knew the Germans were the enemy, I don’t think our government knew at the time.
CB: So you have happy memories of your childhood in Cranwell?
JA: Yes, and then of course we, he was stationed at Manston and we could go in the workshop and see the fitters working on the planes, they never told us to shove off, and we liked the smell of dope on the aircraft on the canvas and, but when they took an aircraft to the butts to synchronise the guns, they’d jack up the tails to get the plane horizontal and we’d stand around with our fingers in their ears while they were shooting into the pile of sand in the butts, and then when an aircraft broke down we used to rush out across the aerodrome to help the man, help the men push it and for kids it was marvellous, we loved aeroplanes.
CB: So do you think that’s what started your desire to join the air force later on?
JA: Well you see I was brought up on RAF stations, RAF camps and I didn’t know any other life, we were isolated from the outside community, we had free medical treatment, free dental treatment, we were in married quarters most of the time where even the crockery was provided, all the linen and everything, so our whole life was in the air force until we were adults, so naturally we all wanted to be pilots when we grew up, and when the war was announced I thought ‘oh good they’ll need more pilots now’ [slight laugh]
CB: So off you went to volunteer.
JA: Well when I was seventeen I couldn’t wait, I went to join up, and I registered as a pilot but I found later they put me down pilot navigator or rather pilot observer as it was in those days so they could change me any time they wanted, and I started flying training as a pilot and then when they introduced the four engine bombers they didn’t need two pilots, so they would have a pilot and a bomb airman who had done some flying training and he in an emergency would be able to take over from the first pilot so the bomber was a second pilot, but and [slight pause] I started flying in England but the German intruders flying over us, over England were shooting us down in our training planes, so the Government opened the Empire Air Training scheme.
CB: Where did you do your initial training?
JA: At Ansty near Coventry and then after much delay because flying schools were all full and there was a waiting time, I was sent to South Africa as a navigator and I trained there as a navigator, but I wasn’t very keen on being a navigator so I also trained as an air bomber, because I knew air bombers would be allowed to pilot the plane, in an emergency, and even during training the staff pilots would allow me to take out over and fly the Oxfords and Ansons because that’s all I wanted to do really and so I trained as a navigator and a bomb airman.
CB: What about your journey down to South Africa?
JA: That was marvellous, hundreds and hundreds of them on a small Liberty ship. We were told you mustn’t be below decks during daylight, so we had to stay on the top deck in all weathers and there wasn’t room for everybody to sit down, so if somebody stood up you immediately sat in that place and some of the troops perched on the ship’s rails until they broadcast anybody falling over will drown because the ship will not stop to pick anybody up, so we couldn’t sit on the rails so we had to stand up sometimes for ten, nine or ten hours, during the day, we were fed twice a day, seven in the morning and seven in the evening and the food was like an airways meal on a tray and it wasn’t enough to keep us alive and I asked the crew, it was an American Liberty ship and the crew were Filipinos and Negroes and I asked them ‘do you have this terrible food that we have?’ and they said ‘no we’ve got plenty of food’, they said ‘if you come and work in the kitchen for us, we’ll let you have our food’, so I spent couple of weeks washing up dirty dishes until the heat got too bad and I went back on the troop deck again, but during my time in the kitchen I was allowed to sneak some food out for my friends [slight laugh] who didn’t work in the kitchen, that was all unofficial of course.
CB: Was it better food in the kitchen or just more of it?
JA: More of it and better.
CB: So they were keeping you on starving rations basically?
JA: Yes, yes, eventually the doctor said I was suffering from severe physical debility but that was much later, we were on this ship for six weeks and they warned us we were in shark infested waters and the ship wouldn’t stop for anybody falling over board, but it was quite an interesting voyage except the sun was dreadful in the tropics and there was no shade, and the officer in charge of troops thought that we were cadet officers because we wore a white flash in our caps but we weren’t and when we got to Sierra Leone Freetown somebody must have told him we were not potential officers and he said ‘right, you’ll have to do all the duties’, fire picket, fatigues, peeling potatoes and all sort of things like that and guard duty for the rest of the voyage, another three weeks and my name beginning with an A, I was one of the first to be chosen for guard duty and it was a stinking hot day and we were anchored off Freetown to re-fuel and I found a hatchway and a collapsible chair and I sat in that hatchway and dozed off because I’d had no sleep, we couldn’t sleep on the deck as it was too hot and the smell of the engine oil, and I dozed off and suddenly I was awoken when the ship’s officer came round on his inspection with the ships warrant officer and they bellowed at me ‘what are you on? sleeping duty?’ and I said ‘yes, sir’ because I didn’t like to say no to anybody in authority and they said ‘you’re under arrest in five minutes’, ‘oh dear’ I thought ‘I’ll be all on my own in prison’, the brig, the ship’s prison was below the water line, it was nice and cool and I wasn’t on my own, there were eleven other air crew cadets in there with me and the police who looked after us took us round for dinner wearing their caps and then they said ‘you keep your mouths shut and we’ll go round again’ and they took their caps off and we had a second dinner, so being in the brig wasn’t so bad, except we were locked in and we were below the water line and there were submarines about, so we thought if, if a submarine hit we’ll certainly drown like rats in a trap but it didn’t happen of course.
CB: It must have been quite a relief to get to South Africa after all that?
JA: We anchored off in Table Bay about quarter of a mile from land and the dock workers had a big lump of rusty steel plate and they wrote on it in chalk: ‘plenty of food, plenty of women, plenty of booze’ [laughs] and the next day we docked in the harbour and we were told you will be discharged tomorrow, and there was nearly a riot because we’d been cooped up for six weeks and eventually they said ‘Ok, you can go into town but you must be back at midnight so we all went into town, it was paradise, things we hadn’t seen for years like pineapples and peaches and plenty of food and so we goaded a kind of a restaurant run by volunteers for service men and some old ladies served dinner, so we had a three course dinner and when we finished they said ‘would you like anything else’, and we said ‘could we have it again please?’, so we had another three course dinner, then we had half a dozen bananas on the way back to the ship [laughs] and we brought a coconut, it was paradise, but at flying school wasn’t so funny, the day we arrived we were told that five aircraft had crashed and twenty five air crew had been killed, that’s five pilots and two navigators in each plane and two bomber men in each plane, five men in each plane and the reason was the staff pilots had been low flying round a hospital where somebody’s wife was working and all five crashed (these would be Ansons?) they were Ansons and they, we were told report those pilots for low flying in future but we didn’t do that because we liked low flying because stooging about high up isn’t much fun, but low flying is exciting [clears throat].
So after training in South Africa [coughs] for nearly a year we went up by stages through central Africa, Rhodesia, Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, the Sudan to Egypt where we found we were going to live in the Heliopolis Palace Hotel, marvellous [emphasis] but when we entered we found there were no beds, no furniture of any description and we had to sleep on the marble floors and our kit had been left behind in South Africa so we only had the clothes we were standing up in, so I wrapped my shoes in a towel to use as a pillow and lay my uniform down on the marble floor and slept on that, I found that I had to sleep on my back otherwise my hip stuck into the marble and it hurt [slight laugh] and then, I was then sent to Palestine where there was a war, the Jews and the Arabs were fighting each other and both sides were fighting the British Palestine police and while I was there they blew up the radio station and they blew up hotels, and people were fighting in the streets and I thought ‘I haven’t got into the war yet but I’m going to get shot by our own police’, and they had said to us, because we each had a revolver, ‘hand in the revolvers in the armoury, so I went down to the armoury which was in the cellar of the hotel and I handed my revolver in, and I saw the men there were mounting twin machine guns on a platform to be carried on a lorry, so it was a war, but then we were then transferred to Lidder, after going back to Egypt and wasting some more time sleeping in the western dessert on the sand, we had to empty our shoes thoroughly because there was scorpions in the dessert and the sand was almost too hot to walk on and the authorities had laid a tarmac path but it never hardens and it was like sticky toffee so we couldn’t walk on that [slight laugh]
CB: And this was part of your flying training or were they just moving you from place to place?
JA: Moving us around, and then we went to Lidder for a conversion course, onto Liberators, about a five week course.
CB: Were you expecting Liberators?
JA: No, when we saw that we were going to fly Liberators, we thought ‘they are American planes, why haven’t we got Lancasters?’, ‘cause we knew about Lancasters we thought they were marvellous, Liberators were unknown and didn’t even know that the RAF had Liberators and we thought they’re gonna send us to Japan because the Americans had Liberators so we were a little bit frightened of that, because we thought we should be helping defend Britain, we thought the war in Japan is an American affair and we shouldn’t be anything to do with that, but after we’d been shuttled around in Egypt to Palestine for a bit we went to Algiers by air, nine hours, and we thought we were on our way to Italy, when we got off the plane we saw a French flag and we said ‘what’s this place?’ and a French airman said ‘it’s Algeria’ or at least he said ‘it’s Maison Blanche’, we said ‘where’s that?’ he said ‘it’s Algeria, it’s North Africa’ and we said we’re supposed to be in Italy but there was nobody to ask, we could ask any questions and he said ‘you can go to a hotel here and sleep in huts in the grounds’, and then you should go to Algiers’s downtown about twenty miles and report to the RTO, transport officer, we went to see him the next day and he said ‘oh bomber crews, you’ll be here for ages, you’re low priority’, he said ‘only fighter pilots are priority one’ and our navigator said to me ‘we are priority one, I’ve read the documents’ but I said ‘shut up, it’s nice here’ so I said to him ‘the French people don’t seem very friendly’ and one of the gunners said ‘no wonder, we’ve just sunk the French fleet in Iran, so [slight laugh] after three weeks we said to the corporal in the RTO’s office, ‘I think you ought to have another look at our documents’ and he stood and talked on the telephone for a few minutes, kept us waiting because we were so insignificant, a low priority, then he looked at the documents and nearly had a fit, he said ‘you’re priority one, you should have left the same day’ he said, ‘you’ll be on a plane this afternoon’, so we fly to Italy in a freight plane with a load of boxes and an aircraft wheel that wasn’t properly strapped down, it kept shuffling around and nearly run us over, we were sitting on the floor and when we got to Italy, no customs, no immigration, nothing at all, nobody to tell us where to go or what to do, so we, first thing a service man does when he goes somewhere new is look for a tea and a bun [laughing] or what’s called a ‘shy and a wad’ and there was a little sort of canteen with Italian girls serving and they were laughing and joking, I expected Italians to be hostile like the French but they were so friendly, I thought we’re gonna like it in Italy and they kept saying ‘capiche, capiche’, and I said ‘no, no cabbage thank you, just tea and a bun’ and they said they were saying ‘do you understand?, capiche’ but we didn’t know that, but we thought they seemed nice [laughs] hope there are going to be some women where we’re going.
CB: Is this around about Naples was it?
JA: It was in Naples, and then we were transferred to Portici to a, to a holding centre, and there were people there who’d done a tour of operations and they were going on a rest period, and they were so dejected, haggard and ill looking, and they wouldn’t talk to anybody and we thought it must be terrible on a squadron, that it was demoralising to see them, anyway we stayed there a few weeks and then we were sent to Foggia by train, and you understood that Foggia is a big aircraft base, there were thousands and thousands of Americans there, with Liberators and Flying Fortresses, B24s and B17s, and we had liberators but other squadrons, some of them had clapped out wellingtons obsolete or obsolesce wellingtons so the liberators were a bit better except they weren’t new machines, they were machines that had been damaged and done a tour in the American Air Force and were now in a sort of scrap yard called a maintenance unit, and the pilots would go and ferry them to our squadron and if we were lucky we’d get the one in reasonable condition but most of them had got terrible faults, some of them had even got twisted airframes, and engine troubles common, and our fitters worked in the open air, there were no hangars, and sometimes they worked through the night in all weathers, and we were reliant on them to keep us alive.
CB: Now your crew, there was the seven of you as in a Lancaster but in this Liberator is that right?
JA: Yes, when I talk about how when I won the war I always say ‘I didn’t do it alone, there was seven of us’, and three of them were Scotsmen, one was from the Shetlands, and it took me a few, few days to learn to understand them on the intercom, because the intercom system is not very clear, it’s like a poor telephone system, and their Scottish accents were very guttural and I knew my life depends on these fellas, so I had to learn [slight laugh] to understand them and the skipper was very pleased when I joined the crew because up till then he was the youngest member, he was twenty-one and I was twenty and of course as I trained as a navigator and as an pupil pilot I was a useful member of the crew, and I’d done a gunnery course so I could do anything if anybody was killed or injured, I could take over from them, I couldn’t land a Liberator of course but I could keep it in the air long enough for the others to jump out and I said, I think I was bombing I think it was Budapest and the flak was so thick I thought we couldn’t get through it without being hit, and I looked over the side and it was like black velvet, the sky was so dark and I thought I’d jump out if I dared but I had no faith in my parachute and as I said to a Polish pilot I knew, he had parachuted safely and I said ‘ I think I’d jump out if I dared, but I’d be scared’ and he said ‘you wouldn’t hesitate if your arse was on fire’ and he was speaking from personal experience.
CB; So, you were with this very close-knit group, you were a good team, a good cohesive team?
JA: Yes, yes, you see when we arrived on the squadron nobody would talk to us because they couldn’t be bothered with new boys and when we became senior crew, we couldn’t be bothered to talk to new crews because on average they were only doing seven trips before they got shot down, and it was bad enough if our friends got shot down, but we didn’t care much about strangers being shot down so we didn’t really want to make any friends, because it would be traumatic when they died.
CB: And what were the conditions like at Foggia?
JA: The conditions were absolutely terrible, we were in a field, there were no gates, no fence, we were in a field with one solitary brick building, and that was the orderly room, the medical offices office and something the commanding officer used, he lived in a caravan, we lived in little four man tents, bivouac tents, you couldn’t stand up in them and we had no beds, we had to make our own beds out of bits of packing cases, and I had the side of a packing case with a strut across the middle, in the middle of my back, most uncomfortable, covered in cardboard, the mid-upper gunner, had a sheet of corrugated iron, I said ‘that’s why, that’s why he walks so funny’ [laugh]
CB: But you’d have the heat, you’d have the rain, it must have been terrible.
JA: It was, we’d have the side of the tents rolled up and the end flaps were open because the heat was so intense and we’d get a couple of hours sleep at night, but we couldn’t sleep more than a couple of hours so we’d get up and walk around, and when the sun came up it was unbearable and there was no shade anywhere, there was a place that we called the dining room and it was a roof on six poles with no sides and we sat on forms at trestle tables, and the cook, had an outside kitchen arrangement made out of oil drums, and the first thing I noticed was his black arms and white hands, he was twenty-one, he never wanted to be a cook, we called him Gladys because he was a nice boy.
CB: And was the food any better?
JA: The food was terrible, you see sometimes the food didn’t arrive, the food was brought to us by a lorry from somewhere distant each day, only enough for one day and after everybody had had a bit of it on the way there wasn’t much left for us, and there was hardly enough to keep us alive and sometimes the food didn’t arrive at all and we’d have nothing to eat for twenty-four hours and one day we said to Gladys our cook ‘ God for Christ’s sake Gladys, find something, there must be something left over’ and he scratched around and he found an onion, a raw onion each and a mug of tea, and that’s what we had and we had to do a nine hour flight, on an empty stomach and of course I smoked twenty cigarettes on every trip because it took away the hunger pangs, and then the medical officer discovered that the cook was using some sort of cans of meat and vegetable stew that had blown, and most of us got severe enteritis and people couldn’t control their bowels and there were no toilet facilities in the air, so people were doing it in their trousers, and sitting there on it for the rest of the trip, and some of the crews were yellow with jaundice, we didn’t know if it’s contagious or what caused it but we were living in what they called a malarias area, there were boards around the perimeter of the field we lived in, saying ‘caution, malarias area, malarias area, area’ and everyday a bowser arrived, a tanker of water but we couldn’t drink the water, it tasted of chlorine it was terribly strong, so we could only use it for washing ourselves and trying to wash clothes but we had no washing powder, we’d save little scraps of soap and put a shirt in a tub and leave it for three weeks to soak [slight laugh] and then rub it, and then rinse it and lie it in the sun, and in the hot sun it was dry in about an hour and we had nothing to eat except a mug of tea twice a day, and when we came back from operations we went to the debriefing tent, and there was a billy can full of lukewarm tea there and half a dozen mugs, they were never washed they were just recycled, we dipped them in the lukewarm tea, but if we were gone for more than five hours on a trip, we were given five boiled sweets which we promptly ate on the ground before we took off, and we were given a gallon of tea between seven of us, in a thermos jug, but that got cold, we’d saved it for the return trip and Jock the wireless operator used to bring the tea round for us cold, cold as ice, and about once a month we got what we called a tuppenny bar of chocolate but it was tropical chocolate and it never melted and in the air, I would put a piece of chocolate in my mouth and chew it and it became like gravel and then it became like dust and then I swallowed it but it never did melt, and one day some, some things arrived at the cook house, we thought they were bails of straw but they were dehydrated cabbage and that’s the worst thing you can have when you’re flying because our stomachs swelled up and we had to loosen our belts and our flying clothes because our stomachs were expanded enormously and we farted furiously throughout the trip.
CB: Did you have proper flying clothes in all this?
JA: We had flying clothing, we just recycled, the only ordinary clothing we had were ones left behind by casualties and of course lots of it was very old and our kit bags were still somewhere in Egypt or South Africa, following on about three months later and when I was in South Africa, I brought thirty oranges for a shilling, no for three pence, you couldn’t buy less because they were in a net, thirty for a ticky it was called, a threepnee bit [sic], and my kit bag wasn’t quite full so I put thirty oranges in there thinking the kit bag would come with me but it followed on three months later and the oranges were well ripe by that time [laughs] they were putrid, and we were allowed to wear civilian clothes in South Africa, provided we wore our service cap, we could buy bush shirts and nice clothing in the gents’ outfitters, so if we took our caps off we looked like civilians, and that was good quality stuff and when that eventually arrived in Italy we were very pleased because we’d been dressed like scarecrows up until then with all sorts, I had a brown battle dress, it wasn’t khaki it was brown, a sort of teddy bear material, I don’t know what air force or army that was from, maybe Greek or something, and it was a bit big for me so I could wear two battle dress blouses, two pairs of trousers, two shirts, two vests and three pullovers, because sometimes it was twenty below in the air and then I’d wear my flying suit, going to the toilet to urinate was a bit difficult because I had so many clothes on, I couldn’t stretch my penis long enough in the cold air to have a pee in the pee tube, which was on the side of the fuselage with a tube leading out of the aircraft but usually they were blocked up with cigarette ends [laughs]. The Americans had had ashtrays in their Liberators, they smoked in the air, smoked cigars in fact but the RAF took the ash trays out so of course we smoked in the air, nobody knew and I would smoke twenty cigarettes during a trip and now and again I’d feel like another cigarette but I’d already got one alight and then I’d think, ‘what did I do with the last cigarette end, did I stamp on it? did I drop it?’ and I’d switch a torch on which had a bit of brown paper over the glass, inside the glass because that was regulation and try and find the cigarette end on the floor somewhere and, once we took a fitter with us to another airfield and he nearly had a fit when he saw me light a cigarette because you are not allowed to smoke within so many yards of an aircraft but it was alright, it was, smoking was less of a hazard than the flak, we were carrying a ten thousand pounds of bombs and thousands of gallons of fuel, petrol and oil and pyrotechnics, photo flashes, incendiary bombs so –
CB: A cigarette was the least of your problems –
JA: A cigarette was minor.
CB: What did you make of the Liberator as a plane?
JA: Well when I flew it, because I could fly it when the automatic pilot backed and the skipper said to me ‘you can take over if you like’, it was like, it was like steering the Queen Mary, if you wanted to change course you had a wheel instead of a joystick and you’d turn the wheel and wait and nothing happens for a few seconds and then suddenly it moves, and if you don’t turn the wheel back quick enough its gone too far, so it’s too sluggish and, of course my instrument flying, I only took over at night, my instrument flying wasn’t good enough, most of my instrument flying was in the link trainer under the hood, and instrument flying was tedious and I could only stand about half an hour at a time, then I was glad when the skipper came back and took over, we were all sergeants, we liked that, because it was awkward sometimes when there was officers in the crew, in one crew the tail gunner was an officer well that seemed silly because a sergeant in that crew was a skipper and he was in charge in the air but he had to salute the tail gunner on the ground, well he should have done if they hadn’t abandoned saluting, but there was so many American officers because all of their bomb aimers or bombardiers were commissioned and the navigators and the pilots, so they always, when they talked to me they always addressed me as lieutenant because they thought I must be an officer being a bomb aimer, bombardier, and I would say ‘no we’re not one, we’re sergeants’, but you see we didn’t wear rank badges because we hadn’t got any, when we qualified at flying school, they didn’t give us any sergeant strips and when we got to the squadron nobody was wearing any rank and the commanding officer said ‘you should wear rank badges’, we said ‘we haven’t got any’ he said ‘chalk them on’, chalk them on, well that seemed so silly we didn’t bother, we said ‘we can get some from the Americans’ he said ‘you’re not allowed to wear those’, so we didn’t wear anything.
CB: Did you get on well with the Americans?
JA: Yes, oh yeah they were lovely fellows, we went to a, about twenty miles away to Foggia, was a ruined town, it had been bombed by the Germans, the Italians, the British and the Americans so there wasn’t much left of it, but there was a bath house where they had shower baths, and when we had a day off we’d hitch a ride on a lorry, lorries were conveying chalk from the quarries and we’d hitch a ride on the back of a lorry carrying limestone, and then we’d get very dusty on there, the drivers were all American Negroes and they’d say ‘where you going, down town Foggia?’ and we’d say ‘yes’, ‘get aboard’, so we’d climb up on the limestone and go to the bathhouse which was a small with half a dozen cubicles which were meant for one or two people but there were always four or six people pushing in trying to get wet, under the water, and we’d be sitting there waiting to go in with our towels and our soap, all naked, and soon as someone came out we’d push our way in and try and get some water, and after the war I was invited by the Hungarian government to go, go to a meeting in Budapest, they’d invited all available flyers of every air force that was active over Hungary during the war, well Hungary was allied with Germany and I’d bombed Hungary but the Hungarian air force was very kind to us, they took us flying, you know in their aeroplanes and there were five Americans standing there, there were only two of us they could find from England, but I said to one of the Americans ‘do you remember the shower baths in Foggia?’ he said ‘yeah I must have seen you there’ but he said ‘I didn’t recognise you there with your clothes on’[laughing].
CB: So let’s turn to your missions, your operations, what were you involved in while you were there on your long range bomber?
JA: Well we could put most eighty aircraft in the air, RAF, Liberators and Wellingtons but the Americans could put up six hundred, or nearly a thousand, they flew during the day, we flew to the same time at night and of course we had the same opposition say for sixty planes as they had when they flew six hundred so our casualties were much higher than Americans but I liked the Americans, we got on well with them, they had a camp in a field not far from us and we went to visit them once, to compare their facilities with ours and they had tents with wooden floors and wooden walls and they had stoves, we had nothing like that, we didn’t have running water, they did, they had electric light, we didn’t, they had decent food, we didn’t, they had flak jackets to protect them when they were flying, we didn’t, they had an ice cream plant for making ice cream and when the weather was very hot, they used to take the ice cream up to about fifteen thousand feet to freeze it and they had a cinema on their site, we didn’t, so we felt really rather ashamed of our conditions compared with theirs ‘cause they didn’t know how bad ours were –
CB: I’m surprised there wasn’t mutiny but I suppose –
JA: Well we had some desertions, we didn’t, we felt mutinous but we didn’t actually mutiny, and our attitude was we want to get this bloody war over and beat the Germans, and get home, but after forty operations we should have six months instructing or some other job and then come back and do another forty so not many people getting through the first forty and by the time we’d done twenty we knew we wouldn’t survive, we were the most senior crew on the squadron, we lost the flight commander and all the senior people off the squadron and when people much more experienced than us were failing to come back, we thought ‘we haven’t got much chance’, and so we reconciled ourselves to the fact that we will die but everybody’s got to die sooner or later and we thought ‘we are gonna die now instead of when we are ninety-nine’ so that cheered us up the fact that everybody has got to go sooner or later anyway but what did worry us, is the thought that we’d be severely wounded and blinded and badly burned, that sort of thing and having to live with that from the age of twenty for the rest of our lives, we didn’t like that, we had been stationed in Torquey as raw recruits, and there was a hospital there for burned air crews, air crews that had had their faces burned off and they were disgusting to look at, and horrifying, and we didn’t want that to happen to us, it was very demoralising and it was happening to other men, it never happened to us, you know, we couldn’t understand how we keep getting away with it, the plane was hit, engines were knocked out, we were landing on one wheel and two engines and all sorts of things like that, but none of us were hit yet and we went on to, the skipper had done one air experience trip, before we started operating, so he was one ahead of us he’d flown with another crew for experience, we didn’t like that ‘cause we thought ‘if he gets bumped off we’ll have a strange pilot’, and anyway we went on, watching other people dropping like flies until our, until my, my thirty-seventh trip, and I was bombing German troops in Serbia, they were evacuating from Greece and the Greek islands, back through Yugoslavia, back to the home land, to defend Germany, and we were stopping them, and no matter how much we bombed them they never really took to it and they hit me, filled me full of shrapnel.
CB: Before we get to that Jim, your first operation I believe were against oil plants in Bucharest, is that right?
JA: The first one was an oil refinery in Fiume, that was an Italian port which is now Rijeka which Fiume and Rijeka mean river, and it’s now Yugoslav, Croatia now, and I know that oil refinery well, and I know a woman who used to go to school across the bay when I was bombing that oil refinery and I thought what a terrible thing it was she lived nearby and when I went past on the bus sometimes after the war and I thought I could’ve killed her and I would’ve hated to kill her she was such a nice person and, after the war I knew a lot of Germans, the German airmen, pilots, ‘cause I speak fluent German and they always thought I was German, they used to say ‘but your father’s German?’, and ‘no, no he’s English’, well your mother is German ‘no no’, ‘well where did you learn English?’, I was the head of the German department of import export firm for years and I had to learn German at school anyway, and I had a private tutors for languages after the war and, I even spoke Italian during the war, fifteen years after the war I opened an office in Milan, and I put a man there who was a Venetian, rather posh Italian, superior you know, and I said ‘hey Franco, have you changed the language?’ and he said ‘why?’ I said ‘well during the war we used to speak differently’ and he said ‘no we haven’t changed anything’ well he said ‘after Mussolini, we didn’t call people voy we said lay’ and I said ‘no it’s not that’ I said, I only speak these days when I’m on my monthly trip to Italy, to supervise the office, I only speak to bus conductors and waiters and people like that but they speak differently to the way I spoke, so I started talking to him in Italian and he said ‘for God’s sake don’t talk to the directors of Fiat, what you speak is Neapolitan dialect’, well I didn’t know that and I thought well if it was good enough for the girls in Sorrento, it’ll have to be good enough for the rest of the Italians, he said ‘you speak like those little black fellas down in the south’, ‘cause you know there was snobbishness between the north and the south but I liked the southern Italians, they were all nice jolly people you know, I’ve even got some distant relatives that are Italian, my, my grandmother’s sister married an Italian during the first war when the Italians were on our side, and they settled in England and had a multitude of children and I knew them all.
CB: So the operations, some of which were in Ploiesti in Romania, and they had a fearful reputation.
JA: It was the most heavily defended target in the world.
CB: You were bombing these oil plants, especially the one at Ploiesti at night obviously?
JA: Yes, yes it had tremendous defences you know, because it was the oil that was vital, what really finished the war was lack of petrol, they got, they’d run out of fuel for the tanks and the aircraft so all the war we should have only really been concentrating on oil refineries, oil fields.
CB: So the operation in October to do gardening or mine laying as it was properly known, mine laying in the Danube of which you reported was the most frightening episode that you’d ever been.
JA: Well the first time that we dropped mines in the Danube, we’d been told they are secret and you must make sure you drop them in the main stream, the Germans must not get the secret of the mines, they lie dormant for three weeks and they don’t go off until the second ship passes over them, so they are virtually un-sweep able, the Germans used to fly over them with special aircraft with a big magnetic ring on it to try and explode them, they’d gun barges adrift to go over them and nothing, they couldn’t sweep them and, within a few months we’d stopped a hundred percent shipping on the Danube, which was conveying oil from Ploiesti back to the German forces, so it was a very important thing and the fighter defences were enormous, we’d seen planes shot down every few minutes and that was a bit frightening, I used to think ‘I hope there’s not somebody I know in it’, because a plane would fly along beside us for seconds, it seemed like ages, on fire, and slowly descend in a curve and explode on the ground, and we were told, ‘don’t be distracted by crashes’ but you can’t stop looking at them, wondering ‘whose that?’ and thinking ‘why don’t they get out, don’t see any parachutes’, what we didn’t know was that the Germans had upward firing guns, and they’d creep underneath the plane in the dark and fire into the belly of the plane and nobody would see them, so the gunners didn’t open fire and wondered ‘why didn’t the gunners open fire on that?’, nobody told us about it, this was the secret.
CB: No, they were doing this to Liberators? They were certainly doing it to Lancasters weren’t they, they were doing this to Liberators as well?
JA: Yeah and you see we had no ball turret underneath, the RAF took out that bull turret, we hadn’t got a gunner for it anyway and then we had a gun turret in the nose but they took all the guts out of that, to decrease the weight, so we had no guns in the front turret, we had no gun underneath that could’ve seen these upward firing guns and we didn’t carry a lot of ammunition, mining the Danube we would use all our ammunition, immediately I’d drop the bombs, I would rush back to the beam position where I’d got two machine guns, one on either side, there was no gunner for those so in the event of an attack I would use those or when we were mining the Danube, I’d drop the mines, rush back there and use those guns to strafe the shipping on the water or any insulations on the banks, the banks were two hundred feet high, and the Germans used to stretch cables from bank to bank so we had to fly below two hundred feet so we normally went to a hundred feet in the dark above the water, and then we thought we’d be safe, except there was flak barges with barrow balloons and we couldn’t see the cables from those because the barrage ruins were too high up above us and you can’t see a cable in the dark, we were going too fast anyway and, I remember one time there was a man on a barge firing at me with an automatic rifle and I gave him a quick skirt, squirt from the machine gun as I went by, I would’ve like to have met him after the war if you lived to discuss that, you know I didn’t mean it really you know, I’d say ‘I’ve got nothing against you personally’.
CB: But if you’re going to fire at me, I’m firing at you, what was your bomb load on something like this?
JA: Ten thousand pounds, you see we couldn’t carry a big bomb like the Lancaster because we’d got the cat walk going down the centre of the plane, so the bombs had to be hung in rows one above the other on either side of the cat walk, so the biggest bomb we could carry was a thousand pounds, so we carried ten of those, ten thousand pounds, which is plenty anyway and we’d carry pyrotechnics, lots of incendiaries as well.
CB: And what was your job if there was a hang up, and the bomb hadn’t been released?
JA: I had to go along the cat walk, in the dark, with no parachute, and no oxygen, and holding onto the railings in the roof and skidding about on the ten inch wide cat walk, with the, the slipstream would take away my weight so I had a job to keep on my feet and when I got to the bomb which was usually the one right to the back, I would stand on the cat walk with one leg and kick it and it would never fall off, so I had to swing then holding onto the hydraulic pipes, which were not meant to be swung from they are only about an inch diameter, I’d hold them with two hands, my wrists would go like jelly, you know, I’d swing and kick with both feet and when the bomb eventually fell off it was like my stomach went off with it, ‘cause there was always lights twinkling on the ground and thousands of feet below, and one slip and I’m off to the ground you know, seconds to live, that was terrifying. The only other terrifying thing was throwing grenades when I went on an infantry tactics course during training and, swinging propellers, on tiger moths, on a wet windy and muddy day, I thought I’ll swing in to the propeller and get my head cut off, but when I was in South Africa a chap did walk into a propeller, a navigator, and it threw his head over the hangar, so propellers were a danger, you couldn’t see them rotating, they were invisible.
CB: So now you were also involved in what was known as the Warsaw uprising or the support of that, that’s right isn’t it Jim?
JA: Yes but to go back to the mining of the Danube, the first time we mined the Danube, I said to the skipper ‘we’re too low, we’re much too low’ and he said ‘we’re at a hundred feet’ and I thought ‘we’re bloody not’, I could tell by the droplets of water we’re not at a hundred feet, when we got back to base the compass was, the radio compass was checked and we’d been at thirty feet in the dark, if we’d touched the water we’d have been gone, so that, it was terrifying yet there was no, there was no pay off, if you dropped the bombs you’d see the explosions and things, you’ve done something but you dropped mines that are not going to go off for three weeks or more then there’s no, the stress is there, there’s no release from the stress except machine gunning like mad, and then of course on the way back you would get attacked by fighters so then I was stay by the beam guns or as the Americans call them the waist guns, and that was quite exciting really firing those, but the reflector sides illuminated, were too bright, they were meant to be used during the day and I couldn’t see through them at night so I switched them off and I fired watching where the trace goes ‘cause every fifth bullet it was a tracer, so I fired a gun like squirting a hose, and they’d burn out about I don’t know whether it was six hundred yards but up to that time I could see where they were going, firing like watering the garden it was, with a hose pipe [laughing] anyway you were asking me about?
CB: Supporting the Warsaw uprising, dropping the supplies?
JA: Yeah, I’d bombed a place in Hungary, we were pretty tired, it was the second of two nights we’d been in the air, and we eventually got back in the tent to go to bed and within three hours a runner, a runner arrived from the orderly room and he said ‘you’ve got to report for briefing’, we’ve only been in the tent for three hours and we were told you’re going on a secret operation, fly down to Brindisi, we didn’t know what it was all about, and in Brindisi we went into a hut and there was a big map on the end wall and it showed a tape going from Brindisi to Warsaw, we thought well it’s nothing to do with us, the Poles are on our side we’re not going to bomb Warsaw, but then we were briefed and told we’re not going to bomb, we’re going to drop supplies of explosives and ammunition and guns for the underground resistance fighters who were fighting in the city against the Germans and, they were expecting the Russians to arrive any minute so on the 1st of August they’d started to fight, and they were doing well for a few days, and the Russians stopped their advance so the Poles were on their own so they appealed for help, apparently Winston Churchill was in Italy checking the arrangements for the south of France invasion which was imminent and he said, ‘we must help the Poles, we went to join the war on their account, we can’t stand idly by’, our air officer commander told us this later and, so he said we should go with the special duty squadrons, there was an Polish squadron and an RAF squadron dropping supplies but they’d lost so many men so they couldn’t continue so three liberator bomber squadrons were called in to do the supply dropping, they said ‘you must, you must drop from below six hundred feet and the poles said ‘two hundred, otherwise the parachute containers will drift away’ and they said ‘we’ve been there, it’s safer at a hundred feet because then the Germans can’t bring the guns to there because at a hundred feet you’ve come and gone quickly’, but they said ‘there’s one building still standing and that’s sixty meters high, so don’t fly into that in the middle of the night’, when we got to Warsaw, the whole city was on fire, gun fire and everything was burning and we’d been told a particular street and squares where we were to drop the supplies but nothing was recognisable so I remembered them saying, Zoliborz, a district of Warsaw is still in the hands of the insurgents, well that was a few days ago and I thought there doesn’t seem to be any fires, or no fighting going on as far as I could see, we fly around for fifty minutes and planes were getting shot down all around us and I’d eventually counting the bridges, I knew where Zoliborz was, I dropped the supplies there and I said to the wireless operator, ‘we must be bloody mad you know flying around fifty minutes’ and he said ‘well we’re not going all that way to drop them in the wrong bloody place’, I thought we’re all crazy, the psychiatrist reported that we were crazy, in their official reports, which I read after the war, ‘they must be crazy and they all think it won’t happen to them’, it’s insulting, we knew it was going to happen to us sooner or later, why shouldn’t it happen to us, it did happen to me in the end, fortunately it wasn’t quite fatal [laughing] .
CB: Glad to hear it, so that was your philosophy really to imagine that you had been killed already basically?
JA: Well we knew that we would die eventually anyway, so it’s like people ask you ‘when did you have your holidays?’, when you’ve had it, doesn’t matter if it was June or September, its gone, so doesn’t matter when you die really, if you’ve got to die anyway what’s the date matter, we had to tell ourselves that sort of thing, but we had superstitions, we had lots of superstitions, my friend Deakey (?) the navigator, he had a lucky shirt and he couldn’t fly without his lucky shirt and if it was dirty he had to wash and dry it quickly ready for flying that night, we only fly once without his lucky shirt and we got lost, and that was on the way back from Warsaw, we went twice to Warsaw and each night we lost thirty percent and by the third night we’d lost ninety percent, ninety, the air force pretended it was seventeen percent but everybody knows it was ninety percent and there are plenty of documents saying it was ninety percent and our air officer commanding Sir John Slessor wrote a book in which he [said] the time of the Warsaw uprising was the worst time of his career and he mentioned it was ninety percent but after the war, Stalin had to be appeased so we didn’t want to tell, didn’t want to emphasize anything we did that he didn’t agree with, ‘cause Stalin was anti-Poles and he’d stopped his army to allow the Germans to polish off Warsaw, and Hitler said eradicate Warsaw, it was to be razed to the ground and he gave an order ‘all inhabitants to be killed’ and the new German commander who wrote a book after the war, he said ‘you don’t mean women and children?’ and he was told ‘yes’ [emphasis], the whole population is to be killed, that’s what was going on when we were flying over there, and we were told ‘if you get shot down near the Russian lines, they will shoot you, especially if you are dressed in blue’, well of course we were dressed in blue we were in the Air Force, so it was a bit late to tell us that now and, while we were flying to Warsaw we were being shot at by the Russians and the Germans because they didn’t agree with us helping the Poles, the Poles got a medal, the Germans got a special badge, the Russians got a medal, I’ve got one of them as a souvenir, and we got nothing, we got no recognition.
CB: Andy your pilot comes over as very calm.
JA: Yes, he was very determined, he was very stubborn and of course he was the skipper, he was in charge but I always felt that I was in charge you see and when we were lost on the way back from Warsaw, Deakey the navigator called me up and said ‘Jimmy can I have a word with you’, well I thought there’s something wrong and I just asked him a little while ago, ‘do you want a pinpoint?’ ‘cause I would navigate by map reading all the way there and back you see, but I hadn’t bothered because he, I said ‘do you want a pinpoint?’ and he said ‘no, no I’m alright’ now he says ‘can I have a word with you?’, so I scrambled up the front to the nose compartment and the tears were dripping off his chin and he said ‘I don’t know what country we’re over’, I said ‘give me the typographical maps, I’m shit hot at map reading, I could tell you in a few seconds where you are’ and I said ‘we’ve got no maps for this place whatever it is’, when we should be over the sea, we’re over land and when we should be over land we were over the sea of course we were over the Greek islands, they’re all messy you know, the little bits and we’ve got no map for that place and I didn’t know until after the way why we hadn’t got a map, the reason was he’d got diarrhoea and he’d used the map because there wasn’t any toilet in plane, and he wrapped it up and chucked it out down the flare shoot, that’s where the map was the Germans had got it, bit messy, and the plane had been on fire, the wireless operator had the wireless set in pieces and he was in his element putting it together, you know mending it, he was busy and I, went up the front to have a chat to the skipper with Andy, and I said to the flight engineer, he pushed past me to look at the fuel gauges, they were like a gauge on an oil tank, like a domestic oil tank, visual gauge with a bubble in tubes, I said ‘how we’re doing?’ he said ‘empty’, I said ‘we can’t be empty we’re still flying’ he said ‘yeah but I don’t know how long for’, we’re flying over aerodromes with German planes with black crosses on, they’re freight planes but we daren’t try and land there otherwise the you know the ground defences open up on us, so I said to Andy ‘we’re heading to the mountains’ and I said to him ‘land on this road’ I said ‘these strong, straight roads’ I said ‘we’re just flying over one now, look you can land here, that’s what I would do if I were you’ and he said ‘I think we’ll press on’, I thought ‘you’re mad, press on, [emphasis] we’re flying into the mountains and we’re out of fuel, and in any minute all the engines are going to cut out’, anyway he was right and we did press on and we got eventually over the sea and the radio operator had got the wireless together again and he always used to stand up and point when he was listening on the radio and he started waving his arms about and pointing and he said its Brindisi and we were facing the runway, we running up to Brindisi and we went straight in, if there had been anybody in the way we couldn’t have done round the circuit because when we got to the end of the runway the, all engines cut out, out of fuel, so we told the duty pilot where we were and that we were out of fuel, so they put some fuel in and flew back to Amendola near Foggia, of course we’d been gone so long we couldn’t still be in the air, our trip was eleven hours and forty minutes plus over an hour going to Brindisi over an hour coming back so we were so tired, I’d already dropped off to sleep for the last half an hour and when the plane landed I was still asleep and the ground crew got in and stirred me with a foot to wake me up, I was just dead tired, I’d been in the air longer than I’d been on the ground for about three days and no sleep at all you know (tired, hungry?) yeah but we were always hungry.
CB: And then you’d have to have the debriefing?
JA: Yes, that didn’t take long because we were always a bit impatient at debriefing, we’d answer questions, we didn’t volunteer any information and always something had gone wrong with the plane, like the guns didn’t fire, the oxygen cylinders were empty, all sorts of things, one engine cut out, two engines cut out and the ground crew would run out to us soon as we landed and they’d shout ‘any snags, any snags?’ and we’d swear and shout and say ‘this went wrong and that went wrong’ using lots of ‘f’ words but then we’d never report the snags, because we relied on those lads and it wasn’t their fault, the planes were clapped out anyway and they’d work through the night perhaps maintenance and they couldn’t get spares and some of the things they did were, were fatal, and they couldn’t help it, one of them said to me, ‘I don’t get very close to the air crews, I don’t make friends with them because’ he said ‘if a plane goes missing I’d wonder if I did something wrong or whether I’d forgot to do something’ and he said ‘I’ve been on a squadron a long time and lots of planes have gone missing and I always feel it might be my fault’ so he said ‘I don’t like to get friendly with air crews’, I can understand that, when I used to go to the, we weren’t allowed to take anything with us like a bus ticket or money or anything like that, and so I had a little wallet and I used to hand it to the sergeant fitter, ground crew fitter and I’d say ‘take that Jake and if I don’t come back you can keep it’, and he’d take it but he didn’t like touching it really and when I got back he’d shove it at me as soon as he could ‘cause he didn’t want anything to do with dead men’s property and I can understand that you know, he was squeamish and when I got wounded he was the chap who lifted me up and carried me out of the plane.
CB: So what happened on that your final operation obviously, what was it the thirty-seventh out of forty?
JA: Yes
CB: And what happened Jim?
JA: When we were told the target would be undefended, and for the first time ever you can bomb anywhere in the town, it’s just full of Germans, so I dropped a stick of bombs at predetermined intervals, and I hit about two or three blocks of flats right in the middle, the next one between two blocks of flats, the next one a road and rail junction, and then I said to the skipper, ‘hold this course for half a minute because we’re going into mountains now’, and we were low you see because the visibility you had to come down very low, ‘cause of the cloud, and just as I said that the tail gunner said ‘it’s flak, it’s stern’ and WOOF [emphasis to express being hit], and it’s a sensation like if you’re playing football and the football is wet and heavy and somebody kicks it and it hits you straight in the face, it’s a numb sensation at first and then comes the pain, well this was like a puff of wind, like being hit with something but no pain what so ever and then floods of blood, I seemed to be bleeding to death, and I felt for my parachute pack because I thought we were getting shot down but I was the only one hit actually, we were hit in one engine and me and the navigator wrote in his diary; ‘Jim’s eyeball is hanging out on his cheek’ [laughs] actually it wasn’t, I’d got a lump of Perspex because all the Perspex had become shrapnel, and there was a piece about four inches long stuck in my eyeball and of course all the blood was running down my face because I was hit in the head and the face and everywhere and the blood running down this Perspex made it look as though my eye was hanging out you see so he couldn’t look at me, so he tapped me on the head and I could see he was talking, we had throat microphones, American throat microphones, it were very efficient and he was telling the crew I’d been hit, I crawled under the flight deck and when I stood up in the well, the back of the flight deck, the wireless operator had got all the first aid kits open and he wanted to put one on my face but he was hesitant to do it and I thought ‘do it, do it’, but of course there was this four inch long piece of shrapnel stuck in my eye, and it wasn’t until it fell out that he could put bandages on and then he bandaged everything that was bloody including my right arm which was badly damaged and my left arm which I’d used to investigate my other wounds and that wasn’t damaged but it was very bloody so he bandaged that as well, he bandaged everything and then he said ‘I’ll give you a shot of morphine’, I said ‘I’m not in pain’, I had no pain what so ever and that frightened me because I thought, if you get your legs chopped off you don’t feel any pain, because the body reacts as though you get shock but you don’t feel pain and I thought I’m dying, I must be dying and I said ‘I’m not in any pain I don’t need morphine’ and he got some out the first aid thing and I’d got my eyes shut and he stuck the thing in my arm and the morphine came like a marble, raised up, it didn’t disperse and when we landed he said to the ground crew ‘I’ve tied a label on him saying I gave him morphine at twelve o’clock, but I know now that I shouldn’t do that because he’s got a head wound’ and ‘oh Christ he’s killed me instead of the Germans’ [laughing].
But anyway, all we did all the time was sing and tell jokes, and it was like a rugby club –
CB: In the military hospital?
JA: No on the squadron, we weren’t morose and we weren’t miserable, in fact everything was hilarious and because we had to keep flying it didn’t matter what we did, hooliganism didn’t matter, drunkenness, it didn’t matter, because we were either up in the air or we had a group stand down when we’d have two of three days off due to so many casualties, waiting for new crews and new aeroplanes, and we’d get drunk and forget everything you see, and if, if unexpectedly we had to fly after a night a free night in the mess and drunkenness, we’d have a headache like you’ve never experienced and I went to the medical officers little cubby hole and there was a youth leaning up the doorpost and I pushed past him and I was opening boxes and things looking for an aspirin and I said to this fella, ‘do you know where they keep the aspirins?’ and he said ‘yeah’ and he told me and I said ‘you know your way around?’ and he said ‘yeah I’m the medical officer’ [laughs]
CB: So you found yourself in this hospital?
JA: Yeah when, after we landed, I was put on a stretcher, propped up in a sitting position on some blankets, some blankets behind me and it seemed to take ages and the flight engineer said ‘what’s the bloody delay? Get him to hospital’ and they said ‘we’re checking the first aid kits’ which all had been opened and used and they said ‘there’s a pair of scissors missing’ and that’s why they were delaying and he said ‘if you don’t get him to hospital right away I’m gonna bloody do the lot of ya’, and he was a tough Shetlander and that made them pull their socks up, and they put me in the ambulance to go seven miles, no twenty miles into Foggia to the general hospital, military hospital, and the skipper said ‘I’ll come with you’, well he shouldn’t have, he should’ve gone back to be debriefed but I was glad he came with me, ‘cause I didn’t know what I looked like, I didn’t know if my ear had been chopped off or whether I’d got a complete nose ‘cause I knew a piece of shrapnel had creased the top of my nose and the bottom, I didn’t know how bad things were and he said I can show you and he and he got a little stainless steel or chrome mirror in his pocket and he showed me but that’s very distorting and I thought ‘bloody hell look at that’, and I heard the nurses talking and they were talking as though I was already dead and one of them said ‘he must have been a good looking boy’, he must have been? [emphasis] I’m still here, you know, and they stripped me, cut all me clothes off and I felt a bit embarrassed because I’d borrowed a pair of long johns from the tail gunner and I was stripped down to my long johns and I felt that was a bit embarrassing because long johns were a bit silly aren’t they, and then the skipper went back then but he had to hitch hike back and he was in his flying kit you know, and when he got back he got a bollock-ing ‘cause he should have gone straight back not gone to the hospital with me, and anyway he got over that and they decided as he’d done one more trip than me anyway and they couldn’t manage without me and they hadn’t got anyone to replace me, the crew could stop now and go for a rest period, and after a few days they did go, and so there I was in hospital four and a half hours, and a chap from the squadron had sprained his wrist or something and he called at the hospital, to see the medical officer at the hospital and he said, the medical officer said ‘we’ve got a chap from your squadron in here’ and he said ‘oh I’d like to go and see him’ and he said ‘no you better not he’s just recovering from four and a half hours on the operating table so you won’t be able to talk to him yet’, and I came round and it was evening but I couldn’t see and I was bound up like an invisible man, just all bandages and I could see a white apparition by the bed and I thought ‘I’m alive’, surprisingly and I muttered, [clears throat] ‘could you tell me if they’ve taken my ear off?’ and this thing said ‘what are you here for?’, and I said ‘I’ve been wounded’, and she said ‘well you’re have to wait until the day staff comes on, I don’t know anything about you’ so I had to wait the rest of the night to find out whether I’d got a nose and whether I had only got one ear and that worried my because in the day of short haircuts I thought I’d look a fool with only one ear [slight laugh] isn’t that silly and, of course I was blind in one eye and the, every hour they dropped penicillin in my eye, it was icy cold, they said ‘you’re lucky, you’re being treated with this new penicillin, new’, I’d never even heard of it and I said ‘can you warm it up, it’s cold’ they said ‘we keep it in the refrigerator’ [slight laugh], anyway, after a few days I was totally blind because my left, my left eye had been alright, well reasonable but then I was totally blind in both eyes and I heard them muttering about cross infection in the ward and I had to lie flat on my back for a month, thirty days I wasn’t allowed to sit up or move due to the eye treatment, they said ‘we’ve healed eyes before but usually they get an infection in the end and we have to remove them’ and I thought well if I can’t see with it it doesn’t matter, I might look alright with an eye patch, a talking point and they transferred me to another ward, they lifted me up flat, put me on a stretcher, wheeled me away, and all the others in the ward had thought I’d died and I said well nobody talked to me anyway, they said, ‘well when your eyes were bound up we didn’t know whether you were awake or asleep’, well I didn’t know what time it was or what date it was or anything and I used to doze off and come back to consciousness again all the time and I never knew whether it was morning or afternoon or evening and I used to listen to what was going on, are these night time sounds or day time sounds, very difficult to tell. Anyway I then after a while when I’d recovered a bit I had more operations on my eye under local anaesthetic, terribly painful, they picked out bits of steel, bits of Perspex and a piece of wood and the chap said to me, ‘what wood was there in the air craft?’ I said ‘well it was made of aluminium’ he said ‘well you’ve got a piece of wood in your eye, a tiny piece’, then I remembered, there was an air blower near the bomb airmen’s position and it would blow in my face so I used to put map over it and stand the astro compass box up against it and it was made of wood and of course that had been shattered and a piece of wood obviously went in my eye, and when they cut my clothes off in the hospital I’d got three pullovers on, lots of clothes you know, multiples of everything and two of the pullovers were air force issue but one I’d brought at Marks and Spencer’s before I joined up and I thought ‘steady on that’s my pullover they cut in half’ you know and that watch that got took off I brought that you know, got no compensation, but anyway it was terrible in the hospital because nobody had any time for me, I don’t know whether they were opposed to the bomber offensive or what it was.
CB: So what nationality were they, the nursing staff?
JA: British, in that hospital they were British, in a second hospital they had Italian nurses that was a bit better but the British nurses were quite cruel really and, except for one, she used to be on night duty and she’d come and sit on the bed and talk to me at night and bring me a cup of tea, I think she fancied me [laughing] and anyway when I could stand up, because I felt very dizzy, it was very difficult to stand up after being about six weeks in bed and I’d only got blood stained clothes on, ‘cause one battle dress was though the rats had eaten it, it just fell open, as I’d got more than one battle dress on, one of them weren’t too bad and, but it was all blood stained and my flying boots were all caped with blood and I felt stupid you know I wanted to have proper clothes, and I felt very truculent and resentful, and the nurse came round and she said ‘lie to attention’ [emphasis] and I said ‘what does that mean?’, she said ‘both arms above the sheets down by your sides, feet together, head straight’, [coughs] I said ‘I can’t do it’, can we wait a minute [pauses] and then got it up gradually from twenty to eighty percent.
CB: So you’re still in the hospital, how long were you in the hospital?
JA: Three months and I was transferred then to a place called Torre del Greco to another hospital, and we’d got Italian nurses there, very pretty, black hair and uniforms, white dresses with a red cross on their chest and their English was a bit faulty and they’d come round every day and ask me ‘lavatory?’ [puts on an accent] and I’d say ‘what’s that?’, ‘lavatory?’ [in accent again], that’s all they could say and I’d say ‘I don’t understand’, and then they’d write something down and go away and I was there for a month and then I was discharged and told you’re on twenty four hour stand by to go back to England wounded, never happened, after a few weeks, they put red crosses on my kit bags and loaded them on board a ship, I had a two week visit, sorry a two week voyage back to England through the, past Gibraltar, through the Bay of Biscay, submarine alert all the time, no beds no chairs and I sat on a form leaning on a table for two weeks.
CB: Still of course not a hundred percent?
JA: No I was ill, very ill and every now and then submarine alert and I’d got to scramble up on deck in a life vest and over coat and have to stand there in the drizzle and rain until the submarine alert was over, and I wasn’t treated as an invalid at all, I was just with the other troops, nobody had a bed, nobody had a chair, if some of them if they were lucky they could climb on the table and sleep on the table but I couldn’t get on the table so I had to sit on the form and lean forward on the table all night, and we put into Liverpool and we spent twenty four hours in the docks while the customs went thoroughly through the ship examining everything, I thought some people have been abroad for several years, what the hell are they looking for? and we’re all British anyway, and then I got off the boat and I had to carry two kit bags with the red crosses on, all to the station put them on the train unaided, I thought ‘what they hell are the red crosses for?’, and I reported to the Air Ministry with me two kit bags and they said ‘you’ve been sent back because they haven’t got the right facilities for treating you in Italy’, so I expected to go back into hospital again but they gave me five weeks leave, didn’t give me any money, they didn’t ask me where will you go on your five weeks leave but they said ‘every week report here again’, well my, fortunately my father was at an Air Ministry unit at Harrow and my parents lived in Hillingdon on the outskirts of London, so I could live with them, the morning after I arrived there, in my funny garb of odds and sods and I hadn’t got a proper uniform, I heard the first time of Doodlebug what we called pilotless planes (B1) I had heard about them, didn’t realise they were so noisy, I knew when the motor cut out they’d come down and one came over and the motor stopped and I said to my mother ‘what do you do?’ she said ‘don’t do anything’ and she went outside to peg some washing on the line and it just dropped at Greenford, which was not very far away from [pauses] not very far away from where we were living and then the rockets came and they were terrifying, the V2s, the rockets, because you’d hear terrible explosion and then hear them coming and in the newspapers and on the radio it was saying ‘gas mains exploding all over London’, well that was a lie, my father knew what they were and he was told ‘don’t evacuate your family as it will cause panic’ so he had to stay there, couldn’t tell his family the danger, it was quite silly during the war because when the Germans bombed a town we weren’t allowed to know which town it was, on the radio it would say ‘bombs were dropped at random’ and we thought ‘Random must be totally destroyed by now because its bombed every night’ [laughs], anyway my father said ‘haven’t you got a proper uniform’, I’d got this brown battle dress which I wore with a blue shirt and a black tie and a hat that had collapsed with a badge I had brought in a bazaar in Egypt which wasn’t a regulation badge, an air force badge it was sort of a souvenir thing bought in a bazaar ‘cause someone had stolen my badge and, he sized me up and brought me a tunic anyway but I was wearing a flying badge and strips on this brown thing and I was hoping people would ask me ‘what the hell are you?’ but nobody ever asked and I was passing military policemen, they should have said ‘excuse me, what air force are you in?’, nobody ever asked because there was so many foreigners in London of different armies and air forces that everybody looked different, anyway I realised I wasn’t, on my weekly visits to the Air Ministry, I wasn’t seen by what I would call proper doctors, I was seeing men in white coats, now psychiatry was in this infantry or psycho analysis and we were prime subjects for it because we were all bloody crackers, you see, so they asked me all sorts of questions, not about my injuries, no medical treatment but things like ‘do you like girls? What sort of girls do you like? Do you dream? What do you dream about?’ so I made things up, course the chap was writing things all down in long hand, ‘what sort of girls do you like?’ I said ‘girls with red hair’, well I had only known one girl with red hair, I nearly said to him girls who do or girls who say yes [laughing] but ‘what do you dream about’ so I made it up a dream and told him and it would amuse me to see him scribbling it all down, no medical treatment what so ever then I got a telegram, report to Innsworth, and I said to my father who’d worked his way up you see from being a corporal in the first world war to being a squadron leader, acting wing commander and he knew all the ropes, I said to him ‘god I could do with a few more days leave’ and he said ‘well send them a telegram’, I said what will I say?’ he said ‘wedding’, so I thought telegram style is quite ambiguous you see, and instead of saying ‘I request extension of leave for my wedding’ I just said ‘for wedding’, so it could be anybody’s wedding, they said forty eight hours granted and report to Manby in Lincolnshire, well I still hadn’t got proper uniform and everything, just one tunic my father had given me, this funny cap and other odd things you know, and I had to buy everything I needed to make it up, you should have three of everything, three pairs of trousers, three tunics etc. I had to buy it from the stores and a 664B which it the payment on clothing on repayment form, I can remember even the name of the form, form 664B, and I had it stopped out of my pay, so I was looking for a job, nobody knew what I was there for, there were people on a course, officers training courses and I said, they said ‘are you an instructor’ I said ‘I don’t know, can I look at your books?’ they showed me the books and I said ‘no I don’t know any of this stuff, it’s all up to date, you know I don’t know it so I can’t be an instructor’, ‘are you a pupil?’ I said ‘no I’m off flying so I can’t be a pupil’, I got pally with the armourist officer and I said ‘I’m sick of just hanging about, three weeks and nothing to do and have you got anything I can do?’ and he said ‘well we need someone to take charge of the low level bombing range but it’s night work’, I said ‘well I’ve got nothing to do during the day or during the night so I might as well be working at night, sleeping in the day’, so he gave me a squad of blokes and WAAFs and I was in charge of bombing range so after another three or four weeks he said ‘guess what, your documents have come through and you are attached to my section anyway, what would you like to do?’, I said ‘well what is there?’, he gave me two or three options and said ‘there’s a detachment on the coast with three bombing ranges, have a ride out there on the ration lorry, see if you like it, you can take charge of one of the ranges’, so I thought well anything to get away from the real air force, get away on a detachment.
CB: Your eyes were alright now were they?
JA: No, no I still couldn’t see out of my right eye, but they said, they introduced peace time regulations and things you see after the war had ended, and they said annual musketry, everybody must attend so I went to the rifle range and I fired off so many rounds and I didn’t get any bullets on the target at all, so they said ‘something must be wrong there, will you do it again?’, well I couldn’t see the target never mind hit it, and I was trying to use my left eye with the rifle on the right side you see and that’s impossible, anyway I was in charge of the bombing range for a year or two and I was sent for by the commanding officer, he was an air commodore and he said ‘air crews are allowed to take trade training’, and I said ‘well I don’t need any because I’ll be demobbed in about six months, demobilised, don’t need any trade training’, I said ‘what is there anyway?’, he said you’re only allowed to take group one or group two trades and I said ‘what are the group one’s and group two’s?’ he said ‘there aren’t any’, I said ‘well what is there then?’ he said ‘well if don’t volunteer for one of these I’ll damn well send you on one’ he said ‘there’s plenty of openings for cooks’, I said ‘oh I’d like to be a cook’, I thought you’re in the warm and you can get plenty to eat if you’re in the cook house, I said ‘I’d like to train as a cook’ and he was furious, he said ‘that’s a group five trade, you’re not allowed to take a low trade’ well I thought well it’d be nice you know in the winter in the cook house [laughing] so he said ‘I’m sending you on a photographic course’, so all the other people, I was in charge of the course of twenty five men because I was a senior man, and the others were people who had joined up to fly but before they could start training the war had finished so they got to go onto ground jobs, and the ones on the course were amateur photographers and they knew everything, well all I knew was you point a camera and press the thing and you send it off to Boots, and when it comes back it’s prints and how they do it I don’t care, but now I had to learn all about it, take photographs of things moving and you know all sorts, people walking, cycling, aeroplanes taking off and all that, I learned quite a bit actually and then I was transferred to Benson, near Oxford and I was put in charge of the photographic section, well I was the most naive photographer in the world because I wasn’t even interested, but I was put in charge and they were doing an air survey of the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, and doing hundreds of feet of film and it was all going through machines and it was all automatic, well I’d never seen such machinery and the photographic officer was always sliding off somewhere and he’d put me in charge and disappear and when he came back he’d say ‘hundreds of yards of film have been ruined’ and ‘how did that happen?’ and he said ‘you didn’t make them clean the film’ well I didn’t know they had to clean the film [slight laugh], so it wasn’t too bad because there was a lot of women there, WAAFs, they were quite jolly and I used to open the section at nine o’clock in the morning and they’d say ‘right we’re go off to breakfast now’ and we’d go down by the river, the Thames and have bacon and eggs and stroll back when we felt like it, and I hadn’t got the faintest idea, some of the people knew what they were doing and some didn’t you see, I didn’t know at all [laughs], so eventually I was demobilised from there and it took place at Uxbridge and I was given a chalk striped suit, like Max Miller I felt, and a hat, I’d never worn a trilby hat and we looked in mirrors in our civilian clothes and laughed like hell because we’d never worn anything like that before and when we come out the demobilisation centre there were chaps hanging around offering you two quid for the box of clothing, I offered them the hat, they didn’t want that, they wanted coats and trousers, ‘cause clothing was rationed you see, and the thing I would have really like to keep was an over coat because they had good overcoats in the air force and I hadn’t worn an overcoat you see, so I went to a market and they were selling second hand clothes which weren’t rationed and I brought a sailor’s overcoat [laughs].
CB: Did you keep in touch with your crew after the war?
JA: Up until the time they died, yes, except the one from the Shetlands who emigrated to New Zealand so we lost touch with him, but the rest of us stayed in touch until they all died, one at a time, not all together but they got heart attacks and cancer and things and I think that was through the stress they had during the war.
CB: You became a very successful international businessman after the war.
JA: I did, yes, I devoted all my time to educating myself, I attended a technical school, it was a commercial and technical school, they had commercial boys who did short hand typing and book keeping and technical boys, I was one, we did metal work and wood work and higher mathematics’ and science, advance subjects you know, we didn’t do the nice subjects like art anymore and scripture and things you know, easy subjects, we didn’t do that.
CB: There is one point I wanted to ask you, you were awarded the DFM, the Distinguished Flying Medal –
JA: Yes.
CB: Did you accept it?
JA: No I didn’t, I got a message, chaps used to come into town, my old friends who’d trained with me and were still on the squadron and they’d come in they said, one of them said, ‘see you got a gong then?’ and I said ‘I don’t know anything about it’, he said it was on DROs, daily routine orders, I did know about it because an officer appeared one day in the hospital and he sat on the bed next to me and I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t recognise him properly, because my eyes were badly affected and he said, in a very pompous way he said, ‘I have honour to inform you, that you have been awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal’ and it was as though I could hear a radio on in the background, it didn’t sound like me at all, and I heard myself saying ‘tell them to stick it up their arse, I don’t want a bloody medal, I want some clothes, I want a shirt and a tunic, and some trousers, I want some shoes’, because they hadn’t provided me with anything and another thing that upset me was a bitch had had puppies on the squadron, in the tent lines, and I’d got one of these puppies and that was the only thing I’d got in the world, I’d got the rest of the crew but I didn’t own them and the only thing I owned was this little Italian dog, he was a kind of Labrador and I used to save a bit on my plate from dinner or breakfast and bring it back for him, put it on the ground and he’d lick the plate clean, and the next morning I’d go to breakfast, forget to wash the plate and I’d remember later ‘oh god I forgot to wash the plate’, because it was always so clean, you see he’d licked it clean, and the lads came to the hospital and they said ‘the CO’s had all the dogs shot’, ‘what, why’d he do that, shot all the dogs?’, ‘cause they were good for morale those dogs and I used to look forward to my little dog you know when I came back from my trips, it might be the last day of my life, and he shot it, and that’s why I didn’t take the DFM, why I told them to stick it up their arse, now years after the war when I moved to Lincolnshire from London, where I live now, I was in Lincoln when I met somebody who turned out to be a flight commander from the squadron, and he was not the same flight I was in, we had A flight and B flight, he was the other flight and he said, I didn’t know him on the squadron ‘cause he came after I’d you know done most of my trips, he was the new boy, and he said ‘do you know the CO is still alive, he lives in Norfolk’ I said ‘no, I didn’t know that’ he said ‘I’ll give you his details, his telephone number and address’, so I phoned him and I said ‘I’d like to come and check a few things with you ‘cause I’m writing a manuscript for a book and the sort of things I’ve heard, I heard that you were a group captain dropped down to wing commander because you wanted what the Americans called some combat time, we thought you must be bloody potty,’ because he was non-compassionate at that time you see, I said ‘there’s certain things I’d like to check with you whether it’s true or not’, I went to see him, I said you never talked to us on the squadron because we were sergeants, he said ‘well I couldn’t because you were so much more experienced than me’ he said ‘I kept a low profile’ and I said ‘well you won’t remember me but I’ll tell you something now and it’ll remind you who I am’ and I told him about the DFM and where it should be stuck and he was flabbergasted, I had come back from dead you know to haunt him and he’d got a couple of dogs there you know, young two dogs, and how would he feel now if I shot his dogs –
CB: Did you mention that to him?
JA: I didn’t no, I just told him I was so embittered and outraged that I didn’t want the bloody medal but of course it was a mistake, looking at the Antiques Roadshow one day, I saw a few ordinary medals being auctioned and a DFM, and the DFM made about six thousand pounds or something put together with the other medals and I said to my wife what a fool I was I should’ve taken it, but it was involuntary you know when I said it, it was as though I wasn’t speaking, I was listening to somebody saying it, and I was in a bad way of course, I’d got no short term memory, for many months, I didn’t dare tell anybody because I wanted to get back on to flying you see, I thought you can fly with one eye, I’m not interested in anything else only flying, they wouldn’t have it, and [pauses] I was eventually, I was on this photographic course and coming out of a darkroom into the sunlight I couldn’t see I was blinded, my eyes are streaming, so I was sent to an army doctor in Aldershot, and he said to me ‘you’re up to British army standards’ and I said ‘maybe I am because you’re calling up people with one eye now’, they were towards the end of the war they called up people to serve with one eye. And I went back to my unit, one day I was called for by the medical officer and he said ‘you should have had a medical board last year’, I said ‘I did have one’ and he said ‘why do you say that? Nothing in your records about it’, I said ‘I went to Watchfield and I had a railway warrant for myself and a party of airmen and I was in charge, ‘and what do alleged happened?’, I said ‘well the medical officer who gave me a board he said ‘what’s your condition?’ and I said ‘about the same’ and he said ‘right we’ll leave it at that then, same’ and he said ‘I can’t understand you saying that’, and I said, he was flicking over pages in a file, I said, the pages are numbered, I said to him ‘there’s one page missing’ he said ‘it’s nothing to do with you’, I said ‘well it’s my records it’s something to do with me, that’s the page that gives you know, details of my last medical board’, he said ‘I’m a squadron leader, I’m competent to conduct medical boards, you are A1’, and I thought I can’t be A1, what’s their game, I thought, well they don’t want to pay me a pension for not being A1, so nothing I can do about it, I left the Air Force and I signed on with a panel doctor just before the National Health Service came into being, and he said I’ll just check you over while you’re here and he said ‘good God man you’re in a terrible state, what the hell has happened to you?’ I said ‘I was wounded when I was flying in the Air Force’, he said ‘well you should get a pension’ and I said ‘I can’t get a pension, I’m A1’ [laughs] he said ‘the bastards’ he said, ‘they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it’, he said ‘I’ll get some British Legion forms and fill them in for you, you sign it and send them off’, so that happened, I took a day off, I thought this is a waste of time and they said ‘yes you are due for compensation’, gave me nine shillings a week, nine shillings, I didn’t need nine shillings anyway within two years I was an armour men’s designer working for the Ministry of Defence and from there I progressed upwards until I was managing director or chairman of three companies at the same time and I was making an awful lot of money.
CB: How do you look back at your time in the RAF? is it with –
JA: With disgust, you see when I was a child, daddy was in the Air Force, all his friends were in the Air Force, they were my heroes, we were, Douglas Bader was stationed on there and he used to come to my father’s house and I saw Lord Trenchard, he was going by in his car on the aerodrome and people who became very famous later and I admired them, they were all my heroes, Amy Johnson and Jim Mollison, all those people you know, civilian pilots, I didn’t know any other life so naturally I joined the Royal Air Force and when we were living at Cranwell, that time 1929 and then again just before the war, the Royal Air Force was known as the world’s finest flying club, it wasn’t very big, only about thirty thousand men in the RAF, they would join with no rank and they’d go out in seven years with no rank, there was no promotion, you see there’s no expansion until late 1930’s and everybody seemed to know everybody, my father knew every commanding officer throughout the world, and he was well known, when I was in the RAF people remembered him you know and they’d look at my name and they’d say ‘have you got any relations in the service?’, and my brother was in the RAF and he said ‘I always say no, ‘cause we don’t want to let the old man down’, ‘cause he was a bit of a scallywag, and anyway, I used to forget to draw my pension of nine shillings a week, forty five pence nowadays and it would go on for about three months and I had to write away for it, and I let things slide ‘cause I was making an awful lot of money, I was eating in the best restaurants in the West End and hotels all over the world, staying in the best hotels.
CB: What do you think you would’ve done if you hadn’t gone in the RAF?
JA: God knows
CB; Do you think you would have just brought your success as a businessman you just have brought that forward as it were and you would’ve started it straight away?
JA: I don’t know.
CB: Or did you need your time in the RAF to form and develop?
JA: I think the RAF made me very aggressive and when I went for a job after ready for coming out of the RAF, I was in uniform and I had an interview with the personnel manager of an engineering firm and he said ‘what were you doing in the Air Force?’ no ‘what were you doing in the war?’, well I was dressed in uniform, I’d got a flying badge and medal ribbons, I thought it was pretty obvious what I was doing, I said ‘I was flying in the Royal Air Force’ ‘oh’ he said ‘not much use to us is it?’, I was very aggressive at that time, the war had made me a bit loopy, and I felt like I wanted to knock his head off but I thought just a minute he’s right, I’ve learnt how to fly an aeroplane, how to drop bombs, how to blow people up, how to shoot people, I’ve learnt nothing that’s of any use to a civilian employer, he’s right I’ve completely wasted my time, if I been a cook or a lorry driver I would have something to contribute, but that made me determined to overtake all the people who hadn’t served in the war so I started at the bottom in a factory, and I went to evening classes and I had private tutors, I spent all my money on tuition, I got language teachers, I leaned Latin, I learned Russian, and I perfected my German and within two years I was head of the German department in import export firm with only Germans working for me, because I was an engineer and a German speaking Englishman, so I’d got an advantage there, and the cold war had started, and I thought either there’s going to be a war with Russia or eventually the Soviet empire is so big there will be a demand for things –
CB: that’s where you did most of your trade –
JA: So I learnt Russian so I could negotiate contracts in Moscow in Russian –
CB: Tenacious, determined.
JA: Well I was determined to do better than everybody, I went for an interview ,when I first came out of the Air Force, because I understand the government were giving grants to ex-service men, and I went for an interview and they said ‘what were you doing before you joined the Royal Air Force?’ and I said ‘well I was in school until just before’, they said ‘were you not studying for a profession?’, I said ‘I was only seventeen when I joined the air force, I was studying higher mathematics and subjects that would get me through the selection board to be a pilot’, I said ‘the town was being bombed and I thought by joining the Air Force I could help to stop that’, they looked at me, they were thinking you simpleton, they said ‘we only give grants to professional people’, so few weeks later I made another application and the attitude to me was humiliating or intended to be humiliating, so I got, I was fed up with being humiliated so I told the interviewee off, I really told him off, in words, you’ve never heard before and the second man who was sitting with him, when I left, rushed out with me and jumped in the lift and he said ‘thank you for doing that’, he said ‘that was wonderful the way you told him off, I’ve had to sit there for weeks listening to his rudeness’ he said ‘you really fixed him’. When I got a job as an armours designer, because I’d been in the Air Force and been shot, not because I knew anything about designing [slight pause], all the other people in the department had gone straight from school, into the ministry and they’d all got a free education and got a higher national certificate which is what I wanted to do you see, so I thought they’ve never been in the service and they’re the same age as me and they’re well ahead of me, got their qualifications, I’ll beat them, I’ve got to be better than them, so that’s what drove me on, I was inferior and I became superior ‘cause I had to, I had to do it, I spent all my money on studying, spent all my time on studying.
CB: Well that’s been a fantastic story Jim, thank you very much indeed.
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Jim AutonSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber CommandDescriptionAn account of the resourceJim Auton grew up on Royal Air Force stations and joined the Royal Air Force at seventeen. He trained as a pilot navigator and bomber at RAF Ansty near Coventry, then in South Africa under the Empire Air Training Scheme. He trained on B-24 at Lidder and after travelling up through Africa was stationed at Foggia in Italy, where he started his operations. He describes the tough conditions there, as well as the operations in which he participated, such as targeting an oil refinery in Fiume, now known as Rijeka in Croatia and Ploiesti in Romania. He took part in mining operations in the Danube as well as secret operations to drop supplies in Warsaw to support the uprising. Whilst on his thirty-seventh operation, he was injured and describes his time in hospital, the journey home and his ground jobs in the Royal Air Force after the war. He also relates why he turned down a Distinguished Flying Medal, and recounts his post-war career as a businessman. CreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceClare BennettPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-06-08ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceEmma BonsonHeather HughesLanguageA language of the resourceengIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAAutonJF150608FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource02:13:37 audio recordingSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Great BritainEngland--WarwickshireCroatia--RijekaDanube RiverEgyptItaly--FoggiaPoland--WarsawItalyPolandRomania--PloieștiRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1944B-24bombingDistinguished Flying Medalmilitary living conditionsmilitary service conditionsmine layingRAF Anstyhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/21/46/MemoroDE 14947.2.mp3b9a1d1a023b500101b49561eb5b9c0a9Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenDescriptionAn account of the resource18 items. The collection consists of interviews with German bombing survivors originally videotaped by Memoro, an international non-profit project and open archive of audio or video interviews of people born before 1950. The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Nikolai Schulz (Memoro - Die Bank der Erinnerungen e.V) for granting permission to reproduce and transcribe the testimonies. To see them in their original video form please visit www.memoro.org/de-de/.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC staffPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentAm 7, am 7. Oktober wurde ja Dresden ‘s erste Mal bombardiert, und ich hatte eigenartige Weise an dem Tag irgendwie Angst und meine Mutti sagte “ach ich schäle jetzt noch Kartoffeln weil wenn Vollalarm, nach’m Vollalarm können wir ja wieder hoch”. Und ich ging da mit meinem Bruder runter und traf unten einen Jungen aus unserem Haus, der genauso alt war wie ich, also zehn Jahre, und sagte, “Du geh doch bitte mit in Keller, ich hab heute irgendwie so Angst”, und da sagte er “nein das darf ich nicht, ich muss zu meiner Oma und zu meinem kleinen Baby Schwesterchen” und ich hab wirklich gekämpf, wie um sein Leben, “bitte geh doch mit und so weiter, dann lass Dich halt mal von Deiner Oma schimpfen, aber Du gehst jetzt mit”, “nein, ich darf des nicht”. Und der Junge ist dann leider auch ums Leben gekommen, weil er hinterher mir dann Vorwürfe gemacht hat, hätte ich ihn mir dort fester angehalten. Als dann dieser fürchterliche Brand, ne Sprengbombe war’s, in die vierstöckingen Haüser runterkam, war erstensmal ein fürcherlicher Staub, trotzdem kam Staub rein, und dann hiess es, also über den Schutthaufen können wir nicht gehen, vor allem nicht wir Kinder, da gab’s Durch, einen Durchbruch, aus Ziegelsteinen nehme ich an, und da war, war daneben gestanden eine Riesen Wanne, das musste immer der Schutz, dass musste der Schutzwart musste immer hinstellen mit frischem Wasser, und Hacken [?] und Beile zum durchschlagen, und wir mussten auch alle immer ein [sic] Bademantel dabei haben, oder ein Handtuch, damit wir dann den Staub weghalten konnten von unserer [sic] Mund und Nase. Und dann sind wir durch den Durchbruch, es war also ganz komisches Gefühl, in ‘ne fremdes Haus und dann noch einmal durch in Durchbruch und dann kam man auf eine ganz anderen Strassenseite, kam man dann raus und wir liefen dann nach Dresden Neustadt und meine Mutti hatte den Bademantel an und ich hab mich geschämt und sagte “zieh doch den Mantel aus, was sollen den die Leute denken am, am, am Sonnabend Mittags mit Bademantel” und meine Mutti sagte “ist mir alles gleich, Hauptsache weg, Hauptsache weg von Dresden”. Und, und ganz eigenartig ist, was ich auch noch manchmal überleg, meine Enkelin, die ist auch am 7. Oktober geboren, 1990, und da dachte ich mir, eigentlich, wenn’s, wenn’s nach meiner Mutti gegangen wär, waren wir ja gar nicht in Keller, wäre ich eigentlich auch da gestorben, am 7. Oktober. Und da haben wir eben erst vor kurzem wieder debattiert, eigenartig, 7. Oktober.
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Gerda GentnerSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.GermanyGermany--DresdenTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1944-10-07FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:03:08 audio recordingIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextMemoro#14947PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourcePeter SchulzeRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content has been originally published on Memoro – Die Bank der Erinnerungen, which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it as an audio track. To see it in its original video form and read the terms and conditions of use, please visit www.memoro.org and then click on the link to the German section. Please note that it was recorded by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.LanguageA language of the resourcedeuSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Bombing, AerialTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundDescriptionAn account of the resourceGerda Gentner (b. 1934) recalls the first bombing of Dresden on 7 October 1944. Gerda describes how she unsuccessfully tried to persuade a young boy to take shelter with her in the basement and reminisces her feeling when she knew that he had died as result of his determination not to abandon his grandmother. Recollects the explosion of a bomb which shattered the house and describes how she and his mother emerged in city changed beyond recognition, still wrapped in bath robes used to protect from dust. Emphasises the coincidence of her granddaughter being born the same day.CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantCivilianConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.MD0 stableCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceNikolai C C SchulzLicenseA legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource.Royalty-free permission to publishbombingcivil defencehome frontshelterhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/21/49/Memoro 10169.1.mp3fab50146aa4a614d17bcaebd9df4dd67Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenDescriptionAn account of the resource18 items. The collection consists of interviews with German bombing survivors originally videotaped by Memoro, an international non-profit project and open archive of audio or video interviews of people born before 1950. The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Nikolai Schulz (Memoro - Die Bank der Erinnerungen e.V) for granting permission to reproduce and transcribe the testimonies. To see them in their original video form please visit www.memoro.org/de-de/.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC staffPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or document
Agnes Stocker: 5. März 1945, hiess es, die Russen werden, kommen näher und wollten die Insel einnehmen. Sie kamen aber momentan nicht über die Dievenow und wir wurden gezwungen, am 5. März alle die Stadt zu verlassen. Wir waren, wurden also evakuiert, mussten uns eine andere Bleibe suchen. Und dann sind wir am 5. März abends auf die Chaussee; und es waren ungefähr bis Swinemünde, bis zum nächsten großen Hindernis, das war die Peene, die wir überqueren müssten, nein die Swine, Entschuldigung, die Swine, die wir überqueren mussten, und die wurde nur mit Schiffen, mit Booten konnten wir übersetzen, dass dauerte natürlich. Und da ist die Stadt, praktisch also wir haben glaub ich nur einen Kilometer in einer Stunde fahren können, war vollkommen verstopft. Und da hat meine Mutter gesagt, nein, sie hat einen Bruder in Kalkofen, das war auf der Strecke, da sind wir abgebogen, dass heisst nicht mit dem Treck, den wollten wir ja mitnehmen, damit ist mein Burder, eine Cousine und meine Schwester, sind bei dem Treck geblieben, wir hatten einen Treck uns gemacht, wo wir auch noch meinen Grossvater mitgenommen haben, der lebte bei seinem Sohn in Hagen. Und ja der ist mit uns dann nach Kalkofen und da hat mein Onkel dafür gesorgt, dass wir mit Booten über das Haff rausfahren konnten nach Ueckermünde. Und in Ueckermünde waren dann wir erst mal ein paar Tage in Kalkofen und dann sind wir rausgekommen und dann haben wir in Ueckermünde auf ein Schiff gewartet damit es, damit wir weiterhin übersetzen konnten, wir wollten nach Neukalen in Mecklenburg. Und das war ein Ort, wo meine Tante aufgewachsen ist und die hatte dort Verwandte und das war unser Ziel. Und am zwölften März war der grosse Angriff auf Swinemünde. Ein grosser Bombenangriff auf Swinemünde Mittags um zwölf. Und da ist, nach den Bombenangriffen, und meine Schwester, also unsere Schwester, und unser Bruder und diese Cousine waren zu der Zeit gerade in Swinemünde. Die sind übergesetzt, die haben so lange gebraucht und die waren gerade in Swinemünde. Und meine Mutter, meine Tante und ich, wir haben in Ueckermünde, das ist Luftlinien-mäßig vielleicht zehn Kilometer weg, und da haben wir das alles mit ansehen müssen, wie viele Bomben gefallen sind undosweiter, und wie die Tiefflieger angekommen sind. Jedenfalls haben wir gedacht das gibt es nicht, das wir, das die drei wenn sie noch in Swinemünde wären, mit den Treck rauskommen. Meine Mutter war restlos fertig, Tante Emi war restlos fertig und ich auch, das haben wir unmittelbar mitterlebt. Die Toten die es dann gab, da ist extra ein Friedhof, das ist der Golm gewesen, also ist auch heute noch der Golm, so eine kleine Bergkupel und da sind, ist ein Friedhof eingerichtet worden, und der war, der ist mit 25000 Toten. Man sprach immer von Dresden, glaub ich, der grösste Luftangriff, aber da waren es noch mehr, so viele Menschen gestorben, die man nicht registriert hat, durch die Flüchtligen, die per Booten über die Ostsee von oben, von der ganzen Küste angekommen sind und, ja, das waren 25000 Tote. Und wir haben dann noch gewartet, ätliche Tage, und auf einmal standen alle drei gesund vor uns, und der Wagen war auch unbeschädigt und die zwei Pferde waren auch unbeschädigt. Sie haben so ein grosses Glück gehabt und sind gut angekommen in Neukalen. Aber da haben wir nur eine Weile gelebt. Wir sind da untergekommen bei Verwandten undsoweiter. Und dann hiess es, die Russen sind über die Dievenow und in Anmarsch. Mussten wir also wieder weg, wir wollten also gen Westen.
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Agnes StockerDescriptionAn account of the resourceAgnes Stocker (b. 1932) recounts her evacuation from her hometown and the journey to Ueckermünde. Agnes tells how she get separated from her sister, her brother and her cousin (who followed the road to Swinemünde), while she, her mother and her aunt first took refuge at Kalkofen and then took a boat to Ueckermünde. Describes the Swinemünde bombing as seen from Ueckermünde - recalls aircraft strafing, emphasises 25000 casualties and compares this operation to the bombing of Dresden. Agnes explains how the high death toll was due to the number of refugees who had fled from the East coast of the Baltic Sea by boat. She recalls how her sister, her brother and her cousin were caught in the city under attack, her anguish at not knowing their fate, and her relief when she eventually reunites with them.DateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2013-11-06FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:06:06 audio recordingIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextMemoro#10169Spatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.PolandGermanyPoland--ŚwinoujścieGermany--DresdenGermany--UeckermündeTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1945-03-05PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourcePeter SchulzePeter SchulzeRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content has been originally published on Memoro – Die Bank der Erinnerungen, which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it as an audio track. To see it in its original video form and read the terms and conditions of use, please visit www.memoro.org and then click on the link to the German section. Please note that it was recorded by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.LanguageA language of the resourcedeuSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Bombing, AerialTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantCivilianConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.MD0 stableCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceNikolai C C SchulzLicenseA legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource.Royalty-free permission to publishbombingevacuationhome frontstrafinghttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/21/50/Memoro 1031.2.mp388b700827a065365bf7920cc4a244493Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenDescriptionAn account of the resource18 items. The collection consists of interviews with German bombing survivors originally videotaped by Memoro, an international non-profit project and open archive of audio or video interviews of people born before 1950. The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Nikolai Schulz (Memoro - Die Bank der Erinnerungen e.V) for granting permission to reproduce and transcribe the testimonies. To see them in their original video form please visit www.memoro.org/de-de/.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC staffPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or document
Brigitte Terboven: Ja, es war im Mai 44. In dieser Nacht mussten wir wieder mal, wie so oft, jede Nacht mussten wir ja raus, weil es Fliegeralarm gab, nicht nur tagsüber sondern insbesondere nachts kamen die Fliegeralarmen, die Bombergeschwader und flogen über uns weg, irgendwohin und in dieser Nacht war ein Angriff auf Essen. Das Ziel war eben die Stadt Essen, das Ruhrgebiet überhaupt. Ein Britischer, wie es hiess, Bomberverband kam und die in der nähe gelegene Flakbatterie durfte nicht schiessen, so hiess es später, weil Deutsche Nachtjäger in der Luft waren, nicht, da hätte ja dann möglicherweise ein Nachtjäger getroffen werden können. Ein Nachtjäger verfolgte einen Britischen Bomber und der, um schneller weg zu kommen, warf eine Luftmine einfach irgendwo runter und die kam 20 meter neben meinem Elternhaus nieder und das ganze Haus fiel zusammen wie ein Kartenhaus. Die Kellerdecke blieb zwar erhalten, aber in dieser Nacht war niemand von uns im Keller. Wir waren auf dem Wege in den Keller aber das war auch alles. Es sind vier Personen, meine Mutter, ein Ehepaar aus der Nachbarschaft und die Frau des Hauptmans dieser Flakbatterie ums Leben gekommen. Mich hat man rausgeholt. Ich soll, ich weiss es nicht mehr genau, ich war ja 14 Jahre alt, nach meiner Mutter gerufen haben, weil ich merkte, ich liege, aber ich liege nicht im Bett, ich liege, ich bin furchtbar eng, das weiss ich noch, und ich schmecke, ich habe Sand im Mund, oder Dreck, oder irgendwas, das habe ich gemerkt, das ist meine unmittelbare Erinnerung, und dann bin ich bewusstlos geworden und erst am nächsten Vormittag im Krankenhaus wieder zu mir gekommen. Und es hatt mich schon sehr gewundert dass mein Onkel, der Bruder meiner Mutter, im Verlauf des Vormittags kam, aber es gibt ja Zufälle im Leben und ich habe da nicht weiter drüber nachgedacht. Man hat mir die ersten acht Tage nicht sagen dürfen, das meine Mutter ums Leben gekommen war weil ich so schwer verletzt war, so das man nicht wusste, ob ich überhaupt überlebe.
Mein Vater war, wie gesagt, eingezogen und man kannte nur seine Feldpostnummer und hat an diese Feldpostnummer ein Telegramm geschickt, was er aber nicht bekommen hat. Mein Bruder war Luftwaffenhelfer, den hat ein Lehrer unserer Schule freundlicherweise geholt, als er erfuhr, was passiert war. Und mein Vater kam eine Woche später, da hätte meine Mutter Geburtstag gehabt, ihren 47sten, da hatte er es geschaft Urlaub zu bekommen und er kam, er stieg in Wuppertal in die Strassenbahn, damals fuhr noch eine Strassenbahn nach Cronenberg hoch, und traf einen Bekannten, der ihn kondolierte und mein Vater wusste überhaupt nicht, warum und weshalb und das war natürlich entsetzlich für meinen Vater. Mein Vater erst hat mir dann gesagt was wirklich passiert war. Mein Bruder hatte mich schon einige Tage vorher im Krankenhaus besucht. Als Luftwaffenhelfer trug er ja diese Hakenkreuzbinde mit, die rot-weiße Binde mit einem Hakenkreuz drauf, und auf dieser Binde hatte er einen Trauerflor, auch eine schwarze Binde. Und ich fragte ihn, “warum hast Du das schwarze Ding da drauf”, und er sagte, “damit es nicht dreckig wird”, so ganz beilaüfig, und sprach dann schnell von was anderem und ich habe ihm geglaubt. So naiv war man und man wehrte sich ja auch gegen tragische Erkenntnisse. Es war, das Leben war bedrolich, das wussten wir alle. Wir hatten kaum was zu essen, wir hatten im Wuppertal, als die Amerikaner dann ein Jahr später kamen, wären 1200 Kalorien pro Tag im Ruhrgebiet an Nahrungsmitteln auf den Lebensmittelkarten auszuteilen gewesen. Im Wuppertal war es besonders schlimm, da gab es nur 600 Kalorien pro Kopf. Und es war eine so schreckliche Zeit, die 44-45, die Zeit, da gab es so viele Tote zu beklagen, nicht nur gefallene Soldaten, sondern auch Bombentote, so das die Todesanzeigen in der Zeitung etwa 6-7 cm im Quadrat gross sein durften, weil einfach der Platz nicht ausreichte in den Zeitungen. Und jeder gefallene Soldat, und jeder Bombentote hatte dieses eiserne Kreuz in der Todesanzeige, links oben, glaub ich, oder rechts oben, das weiss ich jetzt nun nicht mehr, in der Ecke was dieses eiserne Kreuz angebracht. Ich weiss nicht, wie viele Seiten in der Zeitung voll waren mit diesen kleinen Todesanzeigen.
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Brigitte TerbovenDescriptionAn account of the resourceBrigitte Terboven (b. 1930) recalls the bombing of Essen and the dropping of an air mine by a British bomber which was trying to evade a German night fighter. The bomb hit the ground about 20 meters from her home which collapsed like a house of cards. Remembers the death of four people, including her mother; how she was severely injured, barely survived and kept in the dark about her mother’s death for a week. Describes the attempt to bet in touch with her father with the news of his wife’s death and how he was informed only a week later, coming home on her mother’s birthday. Emphasises wartime hardships: food rationing; daily calories intake dropping from the notional 1200 calories to 600; reduced spaces for obituaries in newspapers.DateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2012-09-07FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:06:25 audio recordingIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextMemoro#1031Spatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.GermanyGermany--Ruhr RegionGermany--WuppertalGermany--EssenTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1944-05PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourcePeter SchulzeRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content has been originally published on Memoro – Die Bank der Erinnerungen, which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it as an audio track. To see it in its original video form and read the terms and conditions of use, please visit www.memoro.org and then click on the link to the German section. Please note that it was recorded by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.LanguageA language of the resourcedeuSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Bombing, AerialTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantCivilianConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.MD0 stableLicenseA legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource.Royalty-free permission to publishanti-aircraft firebombingcivil defencehome fronthttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/21/67/Memoro 15496.1.mp3eb7972ded45a668661f8d92a5ede35ebDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenDescriptionAn account of the resource18 items. The collection consists of interviews with German bombing survivors originally videotaped by Memoro, an international non-profit project and open archive of audio or video interviews of people born before 1950. The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Nikolai Schulz (Memoro - Die Bank der Erinnerungen e.V) for granting permission to reproduce and transcribe the testimonies. To see them in their original video form please visit www.memoro.org/de-de/.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC staffPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or document
Jörg Funfoff: Es ist so. Ich bin Jahrgang 1942, aus dem Sommer und kann im Grunde genommen nichts vom Krieg erinnern, aber da gibt es doch etwas. Das ist mir übrigens erst sehr spät wieder eingefallen und das sind authenthische Momente. Die stammen aber aus dem Frühjahr 1945, ich vermute aus dem Februar, das habe ich mir später erst erklärt. Ich stamme aus einem, aus dem Berliner Norden und wir waren, wir saßen genau in der Einflugschneise der Bomber. In der Dorfbraue [?] von Heiligensee heulte die Sirene auf, aber wir hatten schon so ein Ohr das wir die Bomber schon früher anfliegen hörten. Szene irgendwie Abends was weiss ich, 22 Uhr, meine Eltern gehen ins Bett, die nannten das “wir werden jetzt ins Bett steigen”, das war ein authenthischer Begriff dafür. Ich hatte am Fussende ein Gitterbett, stehe da drin, meine Eltern tauchen also in die Betten ab, und ich stehe und sage “Fieger”. Und mein Vater: “Ach quatsch, der Junge, wat der erzählt”, liegt sich in Bett, meine Mutter aber bleibt stehen, jeht an det Fenster, hebt diese Rolleau zu der Verdunkelung so ein bisschen weg und lauscht und sagt, “der Junge hat recht”. Und das war ein Zeitpunkt, da war ich gerade mal zweieinhalb Jahre alt. Und ich nehme an das ist auch der Grund warum sich das eingeprägt hat. Wir haben die [unclear] gepackt, raus in den Bunker.
Wir hatten einen Erdbunker im Garten. Das war eine halb unterirdische Anlage, aus Erde gebaut. Man ging ungefähr vier Stufen runter, die waren so mit Pflöcken und Ästen gesichert, also richtig Pfadfindermässig sah det aus. Und da konnten auf zwei langen Bänken, das war auch Erdbänke ebenso gesichert, konnten ungefähr fufzehn Personen sassen, da kamen auch die Nachbarn rüber, die hatten ja die, also nach dem man die Flieger hörte, ging dann die Sirene los. Also praktisch hatte ick die Vorinformationen schon. Deswegen war ich glau ick [unclear], hat sich das eingeprägt, der Junge macht wat richtig, war so eine Form von Anerkennung. Runter in den Keller, in diesen Erdbunker, Entschuldigung, und der ist, ein Erdbunker ist halb unterirdisch, oben druber ist eine Ladung von dünnen Stämmen und Ästen und dann Erde draufgeschichtet und dieses Mistding rettet niemandem vor einer Bombe, niemandem. Aber das ist den Vorortbewohnern eben aufgespatzt (?) worden und war teilweise auch Pflicht und manche haben es aus reinem Interesse gebaut, wir hatten sogar auch Helfer dabei soweit, das ist mir aber später erzählt worden. Und nun saß man also da unten und musste genau wie in den anderen Bunker abwarten bis also die Warnung aufhörte.
Und da erinnere ich mich an einen zweiten Punkt, und zwar ist das, eine Oma aus der Nachbarschaft, nämlich Frau Stark, die kam auch immer in diesen Bunker, wie auch andere Nachbarn und die saß da und die hatte sich, so waren die Berliner eben, die hatte sich einen Eimer Wasser mitgebracht, in dem Kartoffeln drin waren. Und die schälte die Kartoffeln während sie da unten saß, machte die wat nützliches. Dat war ja nur eine unproduktive Wartezeit. Und jetzt sah ich als kinderjunge wie die, während sie die Kartoffeln schälte und schnitt, sich eine Scheibe abschnitt und aß. Ich muss geguckt haben wie ein Auto den ich wusste von Zuhause, Kartoffeln ißt man gekocht, die ißt man nicht roh. Ich muss so dusselig geguckt haben dass mir Frau Stark eine von diesen Kartoffelscheiben angeboten hat. Und ich habe dann davon gekostet und dann war so das alle ins Lachen gerieten, auch det erinnere ick weil ich ein so dusseliges Gesicht gemacht haben muss. Det waren so eigentümliche Erfahrungen von einer Bunkersituation und Geborgenheit, in der man sich im Grunde genommen als Kind zu Hause fühlte. Also ich habe nicht diese höllischen Ereignisse der Innerstädte undsoweiter miterlebt, ich bin eben ein Vorort Produkt.
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Jörg FunfoffDescriptionAn account of the resourceJörg Funfoff (b. 1942) recounts the experience of being a young boy at Heiligensee, a Berlin suburb; on the flying path of approaching bombers. Narrates how he was the first to hear the bombers approaching before they are in sight (a fact he was proud of) and the time he spent inside a makeshift shelter dug in the garden and covered with twigs and branches. Emphasises the uselessness of that kind of shelter and mentions an old woman from the neighbourhood who used to sit inside peeling potatoes. DateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-05-19FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:05:21 audio recordingIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextMemoro#15496Spatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.GermanyGermany--BerlinPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourcePeter SchulzeRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content has been originally published on Memoro – Die Bank der Erinnerungen, which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it as an audio track. To see it in its original video form and read the terms and conditions of use, please visit www.memoro.org and then click on the link to the German section. Please note that it was recorded by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.LanguageA language of the resourcedeuSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Bombing, AerialTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantCivilianConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.MD0 stableLicenseA legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource.Royalty-free permission to publishbombingcivil defencehome frontshelterhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/21/68/Memoro 15628.2.mp38c81fb9a1dccb84e06f78347255c9c39Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenDescriptionAn account of the resource18 items. The collection consists of interviews with German bombing survivors originally videotaped by Memoro, an international non-profit project and open archive of audio or video interviews of people born before 1950. The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Nikolai Schulz (Memoro - Die Bank der Erinnerungen e.V) for granting permission to reproduce and transcribe the testimonies. To see them in their original video form please visit www.memoro.org/de-de/.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC staffPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or document
JS: Also ich bin Jahrgang 1936. Meine bewussten Kindheitserinnerungen, an die man sich so erinnert, sind eigentlich Kriegszeitenerinnerungen. Als der Krieg begann war ich drei Jahre alt, als er aufhörte war ich etwa neun. Und, ja, das war Alltag. Man konnte sich gar nicht vorstellen das es was anderes, das es eine andere Zeit geben könnte, ohne Bombenalarm, in den Keller runterlaufen, in den Bunker hasten, ohne diese Leuchtspuren am Himmel, ohne Artillerieabwehrfeuer in der Nacht, wecken durch Alarm, schnell noch die Oberkleidung anziehen, denn man schlief ja halb angezogen, das gehörte also zur Überlebensstrategie. [alarm clock goes off] Dann schnappte ich mein kleines Köfferchen, wo ich meine drei, sieben Sachen drin hatte, und einen kleinen Rucksack, Oma, Opa war ja wieder eingezogen, aber nicht als Soldat sondern war bei der SHD, bei der Schutz- und Hilfstruppe, und Oma nahm den schweren Rucksack und wir hasteten zum Bunker, der war ungefähr, fusslaüfig, fast ‘n Kilometer entfernt. Und ich weiss noch eines Nachts, Oma fiel, und Oma konnte allein mit dem schweren Rucksack kam sie nicht richtig hoch, die Leute hasteten vorbei. Ich rief, helft doch der Oma, helft doch der Oma. Es hat so lange gedauert bis dann jemand angehalten hat im Lauf und der Oma aufgeholfen hat, damit wir in den Bunker kamen. Ich hatte einen kleinen Hitler, so aus Pappmaché, angemalt, [showing the puppet’s raised arm] der war abgebrochen, das war für mich damals schon als Kind, als Kind, war das für mich schon ein Verlust. Wurde immer wieder angeklebt, aber fiel immer wieder langsam runter. Symbolisch eine durchaus bedeutsame Geste. Die Fliegerangriffe waren furchtbar. Man saß im Keller als der Barmen Angriff kam. Das werde ich nie im Leben vergessen, Licht ging aus, die Einschläge waren sehr sehr nahe zu hören, das Haus bebte, alle hatten Angst, alle, schrien zum Teil. Die Männer gingen behertzt schon nach oben und guckten, na ist in der Nahe etwas eingeschlagen? aber es war ja Barmen, das erste Wuppertaler Ziel. Das zweite Wuppertaler Angriff auf Elberfeld wo wir wohnten haben wir nicht abgewartet sondern... Ich heisse Schauerte, die Schauertes sind im Sauerland so beheimatet wie Schmidts im Rheinland und wir haben eben auch Verwandte [emphasis] im Sauerland gehabt und zu dem ist meine Mutter die wiederverheiratet war, natürlich direkt nach der Trauung, mein Vater starb als ich einanviertel Jahr alt war an TBC, mein Stiefvater geheiratet, eingezogen, zweimal [emphasis] zum Heimaturlaub gekommen, daraus resultieren meine zwei Halbgeschwister und naturlich beim dritten Urlaub überhaupt nicht mehr wiedergekommen, vermisst. Also meine Mutter mit meinen zwei kleinen Geschwister, meine Oma und ich, wir evakuierten sag ich mal ins Sauerland und haben den Eberfelder Angriff gehört. Unser Haus hat überlebt, aber die Giebelwand zur linke Seite zum Nachbarhaus war völlig weg weil das Haus war also getroffen worden und es war ein Gründerzeit-Mietshaus gewesen, erste Etage wir wohnten, nebenan wohnten Ralenbecks, hatten die andere Zweizimmerwohnung, und die hatten keine, die guckten wenn man die Tür reinging, direkt ins Freie. Nun haben die dann bei uns gewohnt, bis wir aus dem Sauerland dann wiederkamen. Es war eine fürchterliche Zeit, kaum was zu essen, wir konnten aus dem Sauerland immer wieder was mitbringen, Hamsterfahrten, auch nach dem Krieg noch, mit meiner Mutter Hamsterfahrten gemacht. Ich, kleiner Bömsel [?] auch im Rucksack, und dann zu den Verwandten hin. Die Züge heillos überfüllt, heillos überfüllt, auf den Trittbrettern, in den Coupées hinein, auf den Puffern, überall fuhren die Menschen mit. Das war auch hinterher noch, als ich in die Stadtmitte zur Schule musste, mit der Strassenbahn zu fahren, wir sind nur auf den Außenleisten gestanden und haben den Eltern den Platz im Wagen gelassen. Das grösste Erlebnis für mich war, und dann will ich von auch dieser Zeit gar nicht mehr grossartig erzählen wir haben’s ja alle überlebt, mit Aussnahme meines Stiefvaters, war als Deutschland dann schliesslich am 8. Mai kapitulierte und an dem Abend meine Oma mir sagte, „Junge, du kannst dich, kannst ausziehen wenn Du ins Bett gehst, kommt kein Angriff mehr“. Das hab ich nicht glauben wollen. Ich hab mein Leibchen, war ein selbstgestricktes Ding da von der Oma, als Unterzeug, wo man auch an Strapsen die langen Strümpfe dran machen konnte, das war furchtbar, ein Horror für einen Jungen, weil das war fast wie Mädchen und so, aber dies Leibchen lies man natürlich zur Kriegszeiten nachts immer unter. Ich habe der Oma nicht geglaubt, ich hab das Leibchen druntergelassen di ersten Nächte. Dann stellte sich langsam doch der Glaube ein, das diese schlimme Zeit vorüber war.
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterviews with Jaun SchauerteDescriptionAn account of the resourceJaun Schauerte (b. 1936) recalls rushing to the shelter with a suitcase and a bag pack. Remembers one night when his grandmother fell under the heavy weight of the rucksack and nobody stopped to help her. Recalls the Bremen bombing, while he was inside a shelter; being evacuated to the Sauerland with his relatives; the Elberfeld bombing and how their house survived the attack unscathed. Recounts anecdotes of a small Hitler figure made of papier-mâché; wartime hardships; trips to get supplies and overcrowded trains. Describes the end of wartime precautions on the evening Germany surrendered.DateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-06-09FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:07:07 audio recordingIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextMemoro#15628Spatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.GermanyGermany--BremenGermany--Ruhr RegionGermany--WuppertalPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourcePeter SchulzeRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content has been originally published on Memoro – Die Bank der Erinnerungen, which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it as an audio track. To see it in its original video form and read the terms and conditions of use, please visit www.memoro.org and then click on the link to the German section. Please note that it was recorded by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.LanguageA language of the resourcedeuSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Bombing, AerialTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantCivilianConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.MD0 stableLicenseA legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource.Royalty-free permission to publishbombingcivil defenceevacuationhome frontshelterhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/21/69/Memoro 4898.1.mp3afdd3d84544e3c939509e606c40a0a42Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenDescriptionAn account of the resource18 items. The collection consists of interviews with German bombing survivors originally videotaped by Memoro, an international non-profit project and open archive of audio or video interviews of people born before 1950. The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Nikolai Schulz (Memoro - Die Bank der Erinnerungen e.V) for granting permission to reproduce and transcribe the testimonies. To see them in their original video form please visit www.memoro.org/de-de/.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC staffPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or document
MM: „Das ist, am 13. Februar ist meine Mutter, das Haus ist völlig verbrannt, der ganze Block brannte, und meine Mutter, die war grade von der Arbeit gekommen, Spätschicht, und hatte sich nur hingelegt und hatt den ersten Alarm, „alle in den Luftschutzkellern, grosse Angriffe auf Dresden stehen bevor“, haben die durch’s Radio gesagt und da hat sie gedacht, ach ich blieb liegen. Plötzlich war ihr [unclear] als da fällt eine Puppe runter [unclear] bei mir und da wurde sie aufgeschreckt und da ging auch schon das Licht aus und da hat sie die Tasche und den Koffer genommen und ist in den Keller und hat vorher noch mein Konfirmationskleid vom Bügel gerissen wie sie dachte es war aber eine Kunststoffschürze, die hatt sie noch in den Koffer gesteckt und dann in den Luftschutzkeller gegangen und dann, der erste Angriff der hat das Haus nicht beschädicht und da ist meine Mutter noch raufgerannt, hat überall noch die Gardinen abgerissen weil natürlich sämtliche Fenster kaputt waren und die wehten raus zum Fenster, die währen ja auch sofort, wie sie dachten, Brandherde gewesen aber am zweiten, bezeihungsweise am Mitternachtsangriff, um neun war der erste, viertel neun, ist das Haus auch ausgebrannt, da ist vom Hof her auch Phosphor gekommen. Da ist sie raus und an den Elbwiesen entlang zu ihren Elternhaus und ist auch heil angekommen. Allerdings die Stiefel die sie hatte, die hatten Brandlöcher und die eine Tasche, die hat sie weggeworfen. Ja, [background noise] ich war zu der Zeit bei meinen Grosseltern und wie jetzt der Angriff began, man sah den Himmel blutrot, da ist meine Tante, ihre jüngere Schwester, mit mir in die Stadt gegangen, wir sind also rein in die Stadt, und kamen kaum vorwärts, da kamen schon die ersten Flüchtlinge und Ausgebombten, und da war so ein Gedränge das wir einen Umweg gemacht haben und sind dann merkwürdigerweise an einer Schule vorbeigekommen und da sagte jemand: “ihr Haus brennt, aber die Mutti lebt”, die wohnte da in der Nähe. Und dann sind wir da ungekehrt und sind zu den Grosseltern in das Haus gekommen. Und meine Mutter war dann schon da und meine Cousine, sieben Jahre jünger, ich war ja vierzehn, da kam mir entgegen und rief:” [unclear] ist alles verbrannt”, Ja, ist alles verbrannt, “der Puppenwagen auch?” Das war das schlimmste [unclear]“
Memoro DE: „[unclear] Erzählungen was, wie soll ich sagen, was fehlt ist einfach warscheinlich der Geruch auch dieser Brände, die Schreie, warscheinlich viele Tausende Menschen verletzt, verbranntes Fleisch…“
MM: „Furchtbar. Das habe ich alles nicht so mitgekriegt, weil wir am Elbufer gegangen sind und der ganze Feuersturm ist in die Stadt reingezogen, weil ja der Sauerstoff verbraucht war durch die Hitze und da zog das alles in die Stadt rein. Ausserhalb auf den Elbwiesen war es nur rauchig und natürlich hab ich dann um Mittag die Tiefflieger gesehen. Da hab ich mich mit meiner Tante auf die Eisschollen gelegt, war ja Februar, und haben Körper eingezogen und gesehen wie die Tiefflieger über die Elbe geflogen sind und ich, obwohl es alles geleugnet wird, meine doch, das die geschossen haben, es war ein Lärm, und mit Maschinengewehren, warum ja auch nicht, wurden auch Bomben geworfen. Und Jedenfalls sah man auf den anderen Elbufer sah man die Leute die sich hinwarfen. Ob sie nun getroffen waren [?] oder bloss sich auch hinwarfen, jedenfalls die Tiefflieger die hat man ja gesehen.
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Margarete MeyerDescriptionAn account of the resourceMargarete Meyer (b. 1936) describes the 13 February 1945 Dresden bombing and recounts how her mother reacted to the alarm. She rushed to the shelter and took some belongings, including what she thought was her confirmation dress. Explains how her mother managed to leave the house after the second attack and escaped to the open fields along the river Elbe. Describes how she managed to reunite with her at her grandparent’s house after fleeing along streets, overcrowded with refugees and injured people. Describes how she didn’t experience the firestorm because she was on the Elbe riverbank, where she saw aircraft shelling civilians and people taking cover by throwing themselves onto the ground.DateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-02-15FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:04:15 audio recordingIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextMemoro#4898Spatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Germany--DresdenGermanyPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourcePeter SchulzeTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1945-02-13RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content has been originally published on Memoro – Die Bank der Erinnerungen, which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it as an audio track. To see it in its original video form and read the terms and conditions of use, please visit www.memoro.org and then click on the link to the German section. Please note that it was recorded by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.LanguageA language of the resourcedeuSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Bombing, AerialCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantcivilianCivilianTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.MD0 stableLicenseA legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource.Royalty-free permission to publishbombingbombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)civil defencehome frontshelterstrafinghttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/21/70/Memoro 425.1.mp3d3817744f14ba3c28a5b6214688a72b8Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenDescriptionAn account of the resource18 items. The collection consists of interviews with German bombing survivors originally videotaped by Memoro, an international non-profit project and open archive of audio or video interviews of people born before 1950. The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Nikolai Schulz (Memoro - Die Bank der Erinnerungen e.V) for granting permission to reproduce and transcribe the testimonies. To see them in their original video form please visit www.memoro.org/de-de/.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC staffPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or document
IH: [part missing in the original file] In Berlin, also es war [pauses] Ende, es war Anfang 1945, und ich bin, [pauses] ich traüme, dass ich verschüttet werde und ich traüme aber auch, und es kam auch raus dass ich das überleben werde also ich brauche keine Angst zu haben ich werde das überleben aber ich werde etwas ganz furchtbares erleben. Und damals haben wir in einen Patentbüro gearbeitet, bei Patentanwälten, und es waren ein Haufen Leute da in dem Haus und es kam ein Alarm und wir gingen in den Keller und es sind, es ist ganz Charlottenburg und ganz Kreuzberg bombardiert worden, drei Stunden lang und es sind mindestens drei Bomben vor unser Haus gefallen, es hat gewackelt und gezittert und gebebt es ist aber Gott sei dank nicht eingefallen aber es kam dann noch, ach ne, haben wir gefunden, wir müssen hier raus, und die Leute fingen an zu schreien und zu weinen, ja weil es zu brennen anfing. Ich bin jemand, oder ich war immer jemand, wenn’s schwierig wird und die Leute werden, hysterische Krise Anfälle, werde ich ganz ruhig, ich hab gesagt ‘Leute seid still wir haben hier, wir können hier raus, wir werden uns hier retten, wir kommen hier raus, und bitte schreit jetzt nicht rum, so dann, wir finden das schon. Wir fanden auch diese Stelle, da waren die Keller miteinander verbunden mit einer dünnen Schicht, so ‘n Paar Ziegelsteine und da gab’s ‘n Hammer dazu, dann haben wir das eingeschlagen im Moment wo ich durch dieses Loch, durch diese, diese Öffnung [audio interrupted and cut] die Bombe direkt auf’s Haus, dieses Haus bricht zusammen und ich bin bis zu den Schultern oder bis [part missing in the original file] begraben. Dann haben sie mich rausgeholt und wir sind raus, mir ist nichts passiert und wir kamen auf die Strasse und es war alles zerstört, ganz Kreuzberg war eine einzige, ja, Schutthalde und die Leichen lagen auf der Strasse und ich habe einfach nur ‘Danke’ gesagt ‘Danke, Gott oder wer immer das ist der für uns sorgt, Danke dass ich leben darf’ und bin nach Hause gelaufen und meine Mutter stand schon vor der Tür und wartete auf mich, die wußte das ja und hatt mich umarmt, und hatt gesagt ‘Kind, ja, und ich glaube jetzt müssen wir Berlin verlassen’. Und dann sind wir nach Süddeutschland ausgebüxt, wie man so sagt. Das war’s.
Unknown interviewer: na gut [?]
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Inge HeinrichDescriptionAn account of the resourceInge Heinrich (b. 1922) describes the bombing of the Berlin borough of Kreuzberg and recounts how she had dreamt of being buried alive under the rubble but surviving in the end. Tells of how the patent agency building, in which she was working, was hit by three bombs but luckily didn’t immediately crumble; emphasises how she managed to keep calm and reassure those who panicked; explains how she escaped from the building on fire only to be buried under the rubble caused by a subsequent bomb hit. Tells of how she survived the bombing and was able to run back home, where her mother was waiting for herDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2008-10-15FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:02:51 audio recordingIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextMemoro#425Spatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Germany--BerlinGermanyPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourcePeter SchulzeRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content has been originally published on Memoro – Die Bank der Erinnerungen, which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it as an audio track. To see it in its original video form and read the terms and conditions of use, please visit www.memoro.org and then click on the link to the German section. Please note that it was recorded by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.LanguageA language of the resourcedeuSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Bombing, AerialCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantcivilianCivilianTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.MD0 stableLicenseA legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource.Royalty-free permission to publishbombingcivil defencehome fronthttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/21/71/Memoro 1546.2.mp33e225be819b1fb48286e50ab5fa2343bDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenDescriptionAn account of the resource18 items. The collection consists of interviews with German bombing survivors originally videotaped by Memoro, an international non-profit project and open archive of audio or video interviews of people born before 1950. The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Nikolai Schulz (Memoro - Die Bank der Erinnerungen e.V) for granting permission to reproduce and transcribe the testimonies. To see them in their original video form please visit www.memoro.org/de-de/.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC staffPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentCWB: “Also jetzt geht’s über mein Erlebnis zu der Erinnerung im Luftschutzkeller. Der Luftschutzkeller war ja jahrelang ein Ort, wo man mehr Zeit verbringen konnte als in der eigenen Wohnung und eine ganz besondere Situation über die ich noch nirgendwo im Roman oder in Literatur etwas wirklich adäquat beschreibendes gefunden habe, aber vielleicht gibt’s irgendwo, ich kenn’s noch nicht. Also der Luftschutzkeller ist ein Raum in den man höchst unfreiwillig als Hausgemeinschaft eben getrieben wird durch ein Signal, nämlich die Sirene. Wenn man das nicht befolgt hat man noch mehr Risiko, nämlich in der Wohnung sozusagen von Bomben umgelegt zu werden, aber das Risiko natürlich im Luftschutzkeller ist auch sehr erheblich denn man kann ja verschüttet werden, man muss auf ängstem Raum sogar mit Sauerstoffmangel, muss man da mit Leuten, mit dem [sic] man vielleicht verfeindet ist, Deutschland ist ja das Land der Nachbarschaftsprozesse weltweit führend, zu unser Schande sei es gesagt, zur Schande der Rechthaber und Kleingärtner. Und da ist also im Luftschutzkeller eine besondere Atmosphäre, und ganz generell ist mir schon als Kind aufgefallen, das sich im Krieg die Geister scheiden. Der Krieg ist vielleicht [emphasises] leider nötig, damit die Leute sich entscheiden. Jetzt in diesen Friedenszeiten leben alle so nebenander her und zeigen unsere spitze Ecken und Kanten nicht, aber im Luftschutzkeller kommt eben alles raus, das ist eine Kathartische Situation. Da war ich also gerade dreizehn, den mit dreizehneinhalb kam ich weg aus Berlin im Rahmen der Kinderlandverschickung. Also mit dreizehn Jahren und naturlich mit zwölf schon auch, aber ganz besonders schlimm war es 1943, als nämlich Deutschland die Lufthoheit verlor. Wir hatten kein Öl mehr als Bargut, dass heißt, unsere Flieger, unsere Abwehrflotte wie auch unsere Angriffsflotte waren zwanzig Jahre voraus, das habe ich jetzt in [unclear] gelesen technisch, aber sie konnten nicht mehr starten. Dass heißt, wir haben die Lufthoheit verloren, das war eine ganz bestimmter Tag. Plötzlich konnten die [unclear] ungehindert einfliegen und dann hat dieser Englische Luftmarschall den Befehl gegeben eben, als Vergeltung auf die V-Waffen, die Vergeltung auf die Vergeltungswaffen, nichts mehr zu schonen, dann fing tatsächlich der Terrorkrieg an und ja zu unseren Ungunsten. [part missing in the original file] Also diese Situation des Luftschutzkellers die ist so unvergesslich und hat sich mir so eingeprägt, nun ist ja das Alter von dreizehn Jahren auch eine Prägezeit, es ist ja auch der Beginn der Pubertät, man ist hell wach in jeder Beziehung, weiss noch nicht genau was in der Welt los ist. Wir hatten im Haus auch berühmte Leute, zum Beispiel war da der Feldmarschall Milch, der einzig jüdische General der Deutschen Wehrmacht, der ja von, also der Name ist ja ganz klar Milch, ich habe ihn auch ganz gut gekannt, vom Fahrstuhl und vom Luftschutzkeller, sehr netter Mensch, der war ja derjenige wo Goering dann gesagt hat, “wer Jude ist bestimme ich”, weil Himmler den abschiessen wollte. Es war ja ein erbitterter Kampf zwischen Goering und Himmler. Und im Übrigen war meine Mutter mit der Frau von Goering befreundet weil die Emmy Sonnemann eben eine Schauspielerin war zur Zeit meiner Mutter da waren die Kolleginen. Wir hatten also einen Draht zu Goering, der war aber nicht benutzt, einmal versucht, es ging dann schief. Also im Luftschutzkeller dann haben sich die Geister geschieden, worüber geredet wurde, und es war eine richtige Todesangst da, denn jedes Mahl wenn der Alarm zu Ende war, ging man raus und musste erstmal prüfen ob man verschüttet war und am Schluss war ja auch alles kaput, nur wir kamen noch raus und zum Teil fielen noch Bombensplitter während auch schon Entwarnung war. Und ein Bombensplitter viel mal direkt vor meinem kleinen Bruder, der war damals ein Baby, nieder, und da hatte ich wieder so’n religiöses Erlebniss, also er soll weiterleben, und der lebt ja auch heute noch und ist mein lieber Bruder, [unclear] zwölf Jahre junger in Brüssel. Und in den Keller dann, das hat man mir erzählt, ich erzähle etwas indirekt, was mir viele Leute erzählt haben aber ich habe festgestellt das besonders wenn man etwas Gutes tut, wenn man etwas mit ganz reinem Gewissen tut, was so durch einen hindurchfliesst, und gar nicht im Umweg über’s Gehirn geht, das man das dann vergisst weil es offensichtlich inspiriert ist und man ist in irgendeinen Lebensfluss oder Heilstrom angeschlossen. So war das auch, jedenfalls hat man mir berichtet, das ich reihe um gegangen bin und die Leute getröstet habe, also ganz bedeutende Leute die im Keller dann eben ihre Angst durchbrechen liessen. Und dieses Erlebnis, also diese erzwungene Gemeinschaft, die Leute die nichts gemeinsam haben außer der Adresse und dann diese notdürftig abgestützten luftschutzkeller, die auch nicht viel aushalten und diese Stimmung und das lustigste war noch, wenn die Sirene tönte, am Schluss haben wir uns ja gar nicht mehr ausgezogen, weil es sich nicht lohnte, wir haben uns in Kleidern auf’s Bett gelegt um schneller im Keller zu sein und wenn dann eines Tages mal keine Flieger kamen oder nicht wie damals neun, halb zehn Uhr Abends dann mit den Berliner Witz, haben sich die Leute im Treppenhaus versammelt und haben gesagt: “Ach Jotchen, ach Jotchen, et wird Ihnen doch nischt zujestoßen sein”, nicht, also dass man sich dann noch um die Alliierten sorgt, ob diese Flieger da ankommen. Faszinierend war’s die Scheinwerferkegel, das ist für mich ein Gleichnis der Erkenntnis geworden. Da kamen also die Flugzeuge und ein Scheinwerfer hat den erfasst und wieder verloren und dann hatt man einen Kegel gebildet und der Kegel wurde zum Kreuz und dann konnte das Flugzeug abgeschossen werden. Das ist für mich ungeheuer sinnbildlich, das habe ich mir angeguckt, das fand ich faszinierend. Und eines Tages bin ich im Grunewald spazieren gegangen, wir wohnten nicht weit weg davon, und da sah ich etwas, was ich auch nie vergessen werde. Ich sah in Puppengröße, also etwa ein Meter, sah ich einen Alliierten Piloten, völlig eingeschrumpft, wie also in einer Maschine eingeschrumpft, aber alles war erkennbar, Gesicht und alles, und dann habe ich mir nachher von Physikern erklären lassen, ich hab das verboten, Entschuldigung, ich hab das vergessen, verloren, was es für eine Erklärung war, jedenfalls habe ich diesen eingeschrumpften Piloten da gesehen. Und eine Sache erinnere ich mich auch noch, wir hatten ganz getrennt immer alles was mit Bad und Toilette zu tun hatte von unseren Eltern, und einmal da war es so dringlich das meine Mutter reingekommen ist und sagt “Kinder guckt mal weg” und hatt sich dann auf’s Kloh gesetzt ohne das wir zugeguckt haben, aber jedenfalls das meine Mutter in meiner Gegenwart, damals dreizehn Jahre alt, sozusagen, pinkelte das war für mich auch so ein Erlebnis was ich nicht vergessen werde, es hat ja eine gewisse Vertrautheit hergestellt. Ja, das sind also eingeprägte Erinnerungen, die eigentlich ganz stark sind, nicht, die, kann man mich nachts wecken und ich kann das alles noch erzählen.”
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Christoph Wagner BrausewetterDescriptionAn account of the resourceChristoph Wagner Brausewetter (b. 1929) recounts the hardships civilians endured inside a shelter, the risks involved and the fact they spent there more time there than at home. Maintains that the worst year was 1943, when aircraft were no longer able to take off and Germany lost its air supremacy. Mentions his neighbour Field Marshal Erhard Milch and how his mother got acquainted with Goering’s wife. Tells of how a bomb splinter nearly missed his baby brother and how this triggered a religious epiphany. Describes moments of humour when, waiting for the next bombing, they wondered if something had happened to the bomber crews. Narrates how he was fascinated by the searchlights forming a cross when coning an enemy aircraft and the moment he stumbled upon the shrunken corpse of an allied pilot in the Grünwald forest.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:08:12 audio recordingIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextMemoro#1546ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourcePeter SchulzeSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.GermanyGermany--GrünwaldGermany--BerlinRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content has been originally published on Memoro – Die Bank der Erinnerungen, which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it as an audio track. To see it in its original video form and read the terms and conditions of use, please visit www.memoro.org and then click on the link to the German section. Please note that it was recorded by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.LanguageA language of the resourcedeuSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Bombing, AerialTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1943TypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantCivilianConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.MD0 stableLicenseA legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource.Royalty-free permission to publishbombingcivil defencefaithhome frontshelterhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/21/72/Memoro 462.1.mp38ffb522899c95bd9dc21d8a051746b94Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenDescriptionAn account of the resource18 items. The collection consists of interviews with German bombing survivors originally videotaped by Memoro, an international non-profit project and open archive of audio or video interviews of people born before 1950. The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Nikolai Schulz (Memoro - Die Bank der Erinnerungen e.V) for granting permission to reproduce and transcribe the testimonies. To see them in their original video form please visit www.memoro.org/de-de/.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC staffPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or document
BK: In unserem Wohnzimmer hängt ein solcher Spiegel [emphasises] [takes a small mirror]. Dieser Spiegel hat Geschichte. Er ist jetzt vierunsechzig Jahre alt, nein dreiundsechzig, und er stammt aus England [emphasises]. Vor dreinundsechzig Jahren war ich in England in einem Gefangenenlager. Wir hatten im ganzen Lager keinerlei Spiegel. Im Lager arbeiteten viele der Gefangenen ausserhalb und zwar auch im Schloss nebenan, in dem Englische Wachmanschaften wohnten und da passierte einen dieser Gefangenen das Missgeschick, dass ihm ein Hammer in einem grossen Kristallspiegel in dem Schloss fiel und die ganzen Scherben runterfielen und das war dann der Beginn, das Ende der spiegellosen Zeit in diesem Lager, denn ein Kumpel der unter mir wohnte, oder unter mir schlief in unserer Baracke der fünfzehn Menneken waren, der hat mir diesen zum Andenken geschenkt und da hatte ich einen Spiegel, konnte mich rasieren, damals rasierte ich mich noch, heute ist es das nicht mehr denmassen nötig wie man sieht. Und dieser Spiegel erinnert mich immer wieder dran, darum hängt er im Wohnzimmer, dass es auch anders kommen kann, dass es mir schlechter gehen kann, dass ich nicht immer so leben darf oder dass es sein kann dass es schlechter wird. Und Ich bin nämlich im Jahre ‘44 in Frankreich verwundet worden, kam in Englische Gefangenschaft nach England rüber, wurde in einem Krankenhaus in Liverpool ein halbes Jahr lang sehr gut behandelt, dadurch ist mein Bein gerettet worden, das vermutlich in den Kampfhandlungen in Deutschland sicher kurzerhand abgeschnitten worden wäre. Diese Zeit ist mir unvergesslich denn dort habe ich auch Englisch gelernt, das passierte so, das ich im Bett lag, ich war im Beckengips, konnte nicht aufstehen, gar nichts, und eine alte Zeitung, die die Schwestern dort hatten, die haben sie mir gegeben, die habe ich obwohl ich kein Wort Englisch konnte als ich in die Gefangenschaft kam habe ich einfach von vorne bis hinten durchgelesen und da ich ja nun ein Jahr in Frankreich war als Soldat, hatte ich noch ganz gute Französischkenntnisse, wenn man das mit Deutsch kombiniert dann kann man das meiste Englisch raten und das habe ich auch gemacht und auf die Weise habe ich die Sprache gelernt. Eine Schwester die borgte mir ein kleines Wörterbuch, so’n Taschenwörterbuch, weil sie nun mit Deutschen Gefangenen auch zu tun hatte und das habe ich von vorne bis hinten durchgelesen. Ich erinnere mich noch das erste Wort das ich mir aufgeschrieb in einen kleinen Heftchen das aus alten Krankenblättern von den Schwestern mit Leukoplast zusammengeheftet war, das erste Wort war [unclear] der Unterlagen. Und so habe ich mir alle Worte die mir wichtig erfielen aufgeschrieben und habe dann ganz systematisch gelernt. Die Grammatik ergibt sich automatisch wenn man oft genug liest, wenn man eine Sprache immer wieder [unclear] in einem Zusammenhang liest, dann erschließt sich auch der inhalt der Worte, der Charakter der Worte, wenn man ein Wort zwanzig Mal geraten hat dann weiß man ungefähr was es bedeutet und nun lagen neben mir zig andere Gefangene in einem Lager, in einem Raum waren es mal fünfzig Gefangene oder fünfzig Pazienten, im anderen waren es nur zweiundzwanzig, und die fragten mich dann [part missing in the original file] 1945 nachdem ich also schon zwei Monate mich mit dem, mit der Sprache beschäftigt hatte, ‘ja was liest du denn da eigentlich’, dann habe ich den gesagt, ‘was jetzt alles in der Welt passiert’, dann must du uns da mal was vorlesen, dann habe ich jeden Tag eine Zeitungs [unclear] ein und hatte das große Glück das kein Lehrer mir über die Schulter schaute und gefragt hatte ist es richtig oder ist es falsch. Und auf die Weise habe ich denen jeden Tag, wir waren ja alle gespannt, wie geht der Krieg weiter, ist er bald zu Ende undsoweiter, wir hatten ja keinerlei Nachrichten von Zuhause. Unsere Familie die wusste auch zuerst gar nicht wo wir sind, wir waren als vermisst gemeldet und erst als ich zurückkam, ja, anderthalb Jahre später nach Deutschland aus der Gefangenschaft da habe ich überhaupt erst alles erfahren was alles bei uns passiert ist, dass meine Eltern zum Glück noch lebten, dass mein Bruder gefallen war und mein jüngerer Bruder lebte auch noch. Dieses Sprachenlernen das war im Krankenhaus. Als ich aus dem Krankenhaus rauskam, es war ein historischer Tag, der achte Mai ’45, kam ich in ein Lager in der Nähe von Liverpool, Marbury Hall hieß das und zwar ist das in einem Schlosspark gewesen. Dieser Schlosspark war mit Stacheldraht umgeben das waren in rollen also übereinander zehn Meter [part missing in the original file] und von Zeit zu Zeit war ein Wachturm, wo Englische Posten drauf waren und da waren insgesamt zwei Teillager mit je zweitausend, also viertausend Man drin und dieses Lager war zum grossen Teil von gesunden Gefangenen aber auch von einem kleinen Teil Verwundete. Die Gesunden, die gingen raus, wurden jeden Tag rausgeführt zur Arbeit immer in fünfer Reihen so das also zwei Mann schnell zählen konnten wie viele es sind und die haben also in Liverpool im Hafen gearbeitet, oder sie haben auf dem Lande gearbeitet, und bei Bauern gearbeitet undsoweiter. Und immer wenn sie irgend etwas fanden das man eventuell verwenden konnte, haben sie das mitgebracht und das haben wir dann, haben die Verwundeten geerbt und haben daraus sich Sachen gebastellt. Zwar hatten wir offiziell keine Werkzeuge aber das wurde nach und nach gemacht aus einem Draht. Wir hatten Feldbetten übereinander immer und da war ein Draht der so rüberging von einer Seite zur anderen, oder ein Eisenband, und das wurde rausgetrennt und daraus wurde eine Säge gemacht, da hat einer stundenlang oder tagelang mit einer Nagelfeile dieses Band bearbeitet bis eine Säge zusammenhatte. Ein anderer hat aus einem alten, einer kaputten Autofeder ein Hobeleisen gemacht. Vorher musste er natürlich erstmal Schleifsteine sich gestalten und da hat er dann zwei Steine übereinander gerieben stundenlang, tagelang, bis er zwei Schleifsteine hatte und auf denen hat er dann diese Autofeder solange geschlieffen bis er ein wunderbares Hobeleisen hatte. Aus einem Holzklotz dann das übrige Teil des Hobel zu bauen das war dann sicher kein Problem mehr. Und diese Leute die haben mir dann eben auch aus den Scherben diesen Spiegel zusammengebastellt der für mich eine bliebende Erinnerung ist. Ich habe zwar nicht dort viel gearbeitet. Vielleicht noch eine Ergänzung. Ich habe dort Buchhaltung gelernt, ich habe Stenographie gelernt denn da war unter uns Verwundeten ein Diplom Kaufmann, der dann Unterricht gehalten hat und wer Interesse hatte konnte dann dahinkommen und da habe ich also die Grundlagen der Betriebswirtschaft dort kennengelernt. Hat für mein späteres Studium hat mir das sehr geholfen. Und dann noch wurden abends auch gelegentlich Vorträge gehalten, zum Beispiel hat ein Export Kaufmann, der als Gefangener war, erzählt von seinen Reisen die er vor den Krieg in der ganzen Welt gemacht hatte oder ein Apotheker hat über Kreuter Heilverfahren was erzählt und eines Tages hat dieser Apotheker einen Bericht gemacht wurde [unclear] am schwarzen Brett das er über die Frage Bub oder Mädl, die Bestimmung des Geschlechts [unclear]. Und sonst haben wir diese Vorträge waren in einer kleinen Baracke aber dieses mal war die Baracke, reichte nicht, da war ein so grosser [unclear] das wir im Speisesaal, in einer Speisesaalbaracke diesen Vortrag hielt und er hat uns da aufgeklärt über die Methode und zwar das nach einer langeren Enthaltsamkeit werden meistens Buben geboren, und sonst eben Mädchen. Oder auch den Faust haben wir dort erlebt, das eine Gruppe Goethe’s Faust den ersten Teil gespielt hat, die haben monatelang geprobt und geübt, und sogar die Frauenrollen wurden von Gefangenen in der wunderbarer Verkleidung und so überzeugend dargestellt das das mir das die interessanteste Theateraufführung meines Lebens geblieben ist.
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Burckhard KuckDescriptionAn account of the resourceBurckhard Kuck (b. 1925) tells the story of a 63-year-old mirror, a present from his fellow inmates when he was detained in a prisoner of war camp in England. Emphasises how the object reminds him of the lack of mirrors in the camp and of the fact life can suddenly change for the worse. Chronicles his detention in a hospital near Liverpool: learned to speak English by reading an old newspaper with the help of a pocket dictionary; used a makeshift notebook made of discarded medical reports held together by medical tape; read the news to his fellow inmates. Narrates his relocation to Marbury Hall on 8 May 1945 and tells anecdote of camp life: inmates making tools from scrap metal; detainees lecturing on bookkeeping, shorthand, and biology; staging of Goethe’s Faust.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2012-08-17ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourcePeter SchulzeFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:10:12 audio recordingIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextMemoro#462Spatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Great BritainEngland--NorthwichEngland--LiverpoolRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content has been originally published on Memoro – Die Bank der Erinnerungen, which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it as an audio track. To see it in its original video form and read the terms and conditions of use, please visit www.memoro.org and then click on the link to the German section. Please note that it was recorded by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.LanguageA language of the resourcedeuSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Bombing, AerialTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1945-05-08TypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantCivilianConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.MD0 stableLicenseA legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource.Royalty-free permission to publishentertainmenthome frontperception of bombing warprisoner of warhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/21/73/Memoro 4243.2.mp3567dca1b364de2a5bacc4b0dce0fc037Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenDescriptionAn account of the resource18 items. The collection consists of interviews with German bombing survivors originally videotaped by Memoro, an international non-profit project and open archive of audio or video interviews of people born before 1950. The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Nikolai Schulz (Memoro - Die Bank der Erinnerungen e.V) for granting permission to reproduce and transcribe the testimonies. To see them in their original video form please visit www.memoro.org/de-de/.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC staffPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or document
MD: Ein Eindruck noch der mir auch unvergesslich ist, ist das eines Tages, hat meine Mutter mich Brot holen geschickt nach [unclear] in das Dorf oben auf’m Berg [pauses] und ich war [clears her throat] noch auf der ebenen Strecke, rechts in einiger Entfernung war Wald und es kamen Tiefflieger, ganz viele und der Wald fing an zu brennen und ich kriechte eine panische Angst, ich habe mich in diesen Graben geschmissen obwohl der sumpfig war oder feucht damit man mich nicht sieht, weil es ganz ungeschützt alles war, offener Weg und ich gehört hatte dass die Tiefflieger auch auf einzelne Menschen schiessen, die sich da in der Gegend rumbewegen. Und ich lag dann da in dem Graben und hörte also dann immer zu den Tiefflieger und hab gebetet, dass das bald vorbei ist und ich bald aufstehen und nach Hause rennen kann, aber es hatt sehr lange gedauert. Und dann habe ich gesehen wie Soldaten flohen. Die kamen aus dem Wald. Und [clears throat] als ich dann endlich zurück konnte, also so’ne Pause mal kam mit den Tieffliegern, da sah ich wie diese auf der Hauptstrasse, auf der Dorfstrasse so durch rannten und liefen.
Unknown interviewer: Deutsche Soldaten.
MD: Deutsche Soldaten, die völlig abgerissen waren, schmutzig, kaputte Uniform, hungrig, aber auf der Flucht. Die Dorfbewohner haben, wollten schon denen irgendwie was zu essen geben, obwohl niemand viel hatte aber sie haben sich also auch gar nicht lange aufhalten koennen. Und tatsachlich, nicht lange danach, vielleicht ein Paar Stunden danach, kamen die Amerikaner durch’s Dorf gerollt auf Panzern. Da hab ich zum ersten Mal Schwarze gesehen, auch alle in Uniform, chic, gut rasiert, frisch gekämmt, als ob sie jetzt grade einen Ausflug machen würden. So sahen alle aus und alle waren auch alle ganz nett und freundlich, und schmissen so ‘n bisschen Schockolade in die Kindermenge. Die Dorfbewohner standen am Rand und guckten mit offenen Mündern. [pauses] [clears throat] Zunächst hatten wir Angst, aber als wir sahen dass die uns dann gar nix taten sondern einfach nur durchfahren wollten, wohin auch immer, warscheinlich hinter den Deutschen Soldaten her, da wurden wir dann etwas mutiger und einige sachten sogar: ‘Please give me chocolate’ und die kriechten dann auch was.”
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Maria DomanovszkyDescriptionAn account of the resourceMaria Domanovszky (b. 1937) recounts how she threw herself into a swampy ditch when under fire and how she lay down praying and hoping to get back home safely. Describes German soldiers with torn and dirty uniforms escaping from a burning forest. Tells memories of the first encounter with black American soldiers: they were friendly, looked well-dressed and threw chocolate to a crowd of village children. When the adults standing nearby realised that the soldiers were no cause of alarm, they asked for chocolate as well.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveMemoro. Die Bank der ErinnerungenDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2010-08-04ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourcePeter SchulzeFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:03:00 audio recordingIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextMemoro#4243RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content has been originally published on Memoro – Die Bank der Erinnerungen, which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it as an audio track. To see it in its original video form and read the terms and conditions of use, please visit www.memoro.org and then click on the link to the German section. Please note that it was recorded by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.LanguageA language of the resourcedeuSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Bombing, AerialSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.GermanyTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1945TypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundCoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantCivilianConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.MD0 stableLicenseA legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource.Royalty-free permission to publishethnic or religious minoritiesfaithhome frontstrafing